Red Eyed Brother
by WargishBoromirFan
Summary: Manga spoilers up to 108: Scar has died twice, but the important question is how often he has lived. Oneshots set post- and pre-manga. Chapter fifteen: It's not a happy ending for Scar and the general, for an ending implies that their lives are over.
1. Third Life: Covert Operations

A/N: Well, with the conclusion of my first and favorite manga, my plotbunnies have been on an FMA kick here lately, especially anything and everything concerning Ishval. (Well, that and a Barry the Chopper meets Kimbley crack concept, but more on weird matchups later.) So, while trying to get the latest oversize "Blues" chapter and an even more ginormous EdWin / AlMei / Royai / LingFan / Oliveer / TrishHoho / canon-with-bells-on oneshot to proper closes, I present you with a double-shot of bittersweet fluff featuring the Sexy Hobo himself, along with a couple surprise guests. I own none of it, not even hints of Oliviar / Scarvia / S.S Call It What You Like.

* * *

"Uncle Scar!" A small form wrapped primarily in pink attached itself to my leg.

Her companion trailed just behind, making hushing noises. "We're on covert mili'ary business. That means we have to be secret. You can't just go jumping at him," Katarie Miles scolded her little sister.

Millie's eyes went watery, and I picked up the younger of my two "nieces" before she started to cry. "What sort of military business?" I asked, patting her back with my free hand.

"Official Briggs business. 'Covert' means that only special people got to know. Daddy taught me that," the elder half-Amestrian girl cheerfully informed me, hands planted on hips. Katarie was every bit as sharp as her father, but sometimes she took her games far too seriously.

"General Armstrong said she'd play snowballs on our team if we could find out your old name!" Millie was no longer on the edge of tears, but those big violet eyes still reminded me of a certain dwarf panda. I wasn't sure which part of this revelation bothered me more: that Olivia Mira Armstrong was curious enough about my past that she'd get Miles's daughters involved, or that she knew me well enough to realize that they would be the most effective means to her end.

"Millie!" Katarie's palm issued an audible smack as it made contact with her forehead.

"Uncle Scar is special," the younger girl reasoned. "Do you really have an old name, Uncle Scar? I know that there are names that only old people and parents use for each other, like what Mr. Ed calls Brigadier -" Her voice attempted a scratchy growl in an impression of one of Ishval's less frequent - and when it comes to his language around young children, slightly less welcome - visitors. Both Katarie and I cut her off. "Mustang," she finished without missing a beat.

Just because I fully sympathized with Edward Elric's sentiments concerning the once and future hero of Ishval didn't mean I wished to hear them parroted by my six-year-old goddaughter.

"But General Armstrong says that it's not like that; she says your old name is secret," Millie continued.

"She said _she _already asked him and he wouldn't tell her, and he won't tell Daddy, either, so why are we asking him?" Katarie wouldn't look at me as she spoke. Both girls had been born in the north, raised up through their early childhood in the shadow of Briggs, and still revered Olivia Armstrong as something akin to Ishvala walking the earth. Not doing something that both the General (Mustang was merely "Brigadier") and Daddy had asked one to do was a serious crime indeed.

"Well, you'll tell us, won't you?" Millie caught my hand and traced the edge of the deconstruction tattoo peeking from beneath the sleeve as if lost in thought. "Red-eyed uncle?" I knew better, but she was still hard to resist.

"Tell you what," I sighed, setting her down next to her sister and crouching before them. "Ask the town elders about the first Ishvalan alchemist and his little brother. If you ask politely, they probably still remember the names."

This got Katarie's attention. "Well, of course that's you and Daddy. Uncle Scar, are you saying that you've gotten so old that you've forgotten your own name?"

"Only sometimes," I laughed, mussing her long blonde curls affectionately. I wondered sometimes, if that hand I used had been attached to another body, would these girls have other half-Ishvalan playmates instead of just a red-eyed uncle who ran from his past even as he clung to it? I had died twice; I was unworthy of my original name, but my brother's name... that deserved to be remembered by the next generation.


	2. First Life: Solar Flare

A/N: Of course my 108th fic on the Pit had to be a Fullmetal Alchemist fic! I might have another Scar-narrated oneshot or three to follow these up with, but I make no promises that they'll tie together into a grander narrative or anything. Currently, this one's the odd one out, but who knows? Yes, it's still mangaverse, though this piece is set preseries. Yes, it's also got SexyHoBro - er, Scarbro/Lust, 'cause every fandom needs at least one crack ship that's sort of canon. Not mine, not even the cactus juice. (It's the quenchiest! And now Avatar: the Last Airbender fans know where I got the name for Major Miles's elder daughter.) 'Cause surely I wouldn't tease my readers by never giving away a character's name, now, would I?

As to Mrs. Miles identity, tehPandaPatrol... She's mentioned, as are the daughters, but never by name in the manga. There's an epileptic tree on TV Tropes that actually makes a case for Olivia being the mother in secret, (it's here: http:/tvtropes. org pmwiki/pmwiki. php/WMG/FullmetalAlchemist - about two thirds of the way down,) which I think would make for an interesting fic, (hint hint nudge nudge sic plotbunny wink wink) but my own personal fanon relies on the fact that none of the men bring up the fact that the local doctor is female even when they cry about Winry leaving them with no girls around but the Cliff of Briggs. Ah, did I say _one_ crack ship that's sort of canon-friendly? I meant more like at least three. Let's face it: Olivia's as big a memetic pimp as Roy Mustang, but she's not the easiest to write believable, in-character, mentally- and emotionally-satisfying fluffy romance for. *Hides from wrath of the She-Bear Ice Queen*

* * *

Alchemy was Brother's first love, as in timing as well as importance, but it was not, strictly speaking, his only love.

She introduced herself simply as Solaris. She'd come with the caravans, delivering the latest book to Brother, personally. "This yours?" She practically purred his name, melting him in ways the burning sun outside couldn't.

He'd been speechless with awe, and I don't think it was caused entirely by the rarity of the ancient tome on the Sage of the East she carried in black-gloved hands. Brother was always more than a little blind about such things, but even he had noticed the curves of her smooth skin, paler than the parchment in her hands, and once he had wordlessly taken the book, she pushed back her hood to reveal inky black hair flowing like a rainy-season cascade down her back. Her eyes, at least, were not quite so astoundingly foreign: their smoldering violet looked almost normal red at the right angle, though I couldn't say that their effect on us was completely normal.

I was young, but if she made an impression on Brother, I was equally mesmerized. I'm not devoid of feelings, even as I am.

I'd been able to defeat Brother in sparring matches, friendly and otherwise, since we were quite young, but this was one fight I didn't think I'd ever win. She'd spared me a quick glance as Brother attempted to introduce me, but those heavy-lidded violet eyes returned almost immediately to my brother. "I'd heard that there was a promising young alchemist out here in the east, but I'd never thought that you'd be like this."

I raised an eyebrow, circling to my sibling's side. "Like what?" I tried not to sound as jealous as I secretly was. I told myself that I questioned her merely out of brotherly concern - Brother was older, but surely he needed more care than I did; it was only fair to return the protection he'd always shown me - but I cannot lie to God and I've all but given up on lying to myself. My blood rushed at the silky sound of her voice, and if I could not give myself reason to dislike her, I would content myself with a response from those full red lips.

All she offered was a enigmatic smile. "What interests you so in the Sage of the East?"

With the conversation turned firmly back to a subject Brother felt comfortable handling, he fumbled for his voice. "It's - ah - I'd like to - The Xingese have a legend concerning the Sage of the West. I - I'm trying to compare the two, see if they might even be the same man." He clutched the book to his chest as if he expected Mother to swoop in at any moment and scold him for paying more attention to it than to his prayers. It wouldn't be the first time, but I'd promised Brother that I'd try to pray enough for my heretic older sibling, too, and Mother seemed to have grudgingly accepted her elder son's strange ways as long as at least one of us followed his duties to our people and our God. (And it was him, in the end; it was always, always him…)

I certainly was praying the day we met Solaris, though I am ashamed to say why, now.

"But you have so much potential." She sounded disappointed in Brother's choice of studies, and if our mother's concerns did not shame him, this woman might move him in other ways. "Why waste time with silly theories when you might yet be counted among the best of all of Amestris in practical alchemy?" That fallen angel's voice was the sort that could make almost any man want to do something much more physical than poring over old alchemy textbooks.

Brother's grip went slack as she leaned forward, giving him a better view of just what lay beneath that sun-cloak. He barely avoided dropping his newest acquirement. "Without studying our past and our world, we can hardly make much of a difference for our future." My brother had passed the age when a young man's voice squeaked and jumped like a surprised dune rat in a windstorm, but his sage words were somewhat diminished by a sudden return to boyish grating falsetto that even made me wince.

"You've learned a lot from studying these Sages, then?" she asked, circling around us to glance over the other titles on Brother's bookshelf. His eyes never left her, though he put an elbow out and shook his head when I stepped forward to examine her casual perusal of my brother's home and workspace (the two were synonymous, honestly,) a little more closely.

"Mostly about gold," he replied with a quick, nervous laugh. "That's one part of the legend that never changes: the Sage had golden hair and golden eyes, so apparently he wasn't Ishvalan."

"Maybe not." Her laughter made my head muzzy and my heart buzz like the cactus juice Brother had insisted we try when we'd gotten lost outside the city. "But you… _you_ know where he came from, don't you?"

"It's just a theory." Brother modestly readjusted his glasses. "I've been looking elsewhere in the desert." He'd been making longer and longer trips, searching for the ruins of Xerxes. I went with him, when I could, though I still didn't understand his purpose in seeking out a dead civilization that God had erased from the face of the earth. "Still, if your interests lie in practical alchemy, I don't mean to bore you with research. Please, once more, be welcome, and tell me, if you will, what led a woman such as yourself to become interested in alchemy."

"It's rather a family concern." She sat on the one clutter-free space of Brother's desk as if she belonged there, placing her cheek on the palm of her hand, her elbow resting against primly-crossed long legs. "Father takes a special interest in powerful young alchemists, and I rather find myself doing the same." If I hadn't been so ensnared myself, I would have found Brother's reaction laughable.

"I'd be more than willing to share any new techniques I come across," he promised her gallantly. "While I cannot say that I've entirely approved of what has befallen Ishval under Amestrian rule so far, I'm sure God has a hand in tying true believers like my brother here to His wider world beyond." Brother placed the alchemy text atop a pile of others that he had been rereading, clapping my shoulder as if to reassure me that he meant no true disrespect with his irreverence. Still, I positioned myself firmly between them, shooting my brother a withering glare. I can only be thankful that my brother's most destructive discovery was still several years away. "Like any other science, alchemy is a mystery God left for us to unravel, and as such, it belongs to His entire world."

She smiled. No teeth, just the upturn of her lips, but there was something hypnotizing and predatory about her eyes that sent a shiver down my spine, and she wasn't even looking at me. "I look forward to hearing about your discoveries."


	3. Third Life: Line in the Snow

A/N: Do I look like I could possibly own the awesomeness that is Olivia, Scar, Mustang, Mei, Hohopapa, and the Elric brothers? Let alone any of the others? Woof, I'm a cow. See, it doesn't work...

In terms of where this is going: I have two more Third Life bits prewritten and another one or two in the planning stages, and I'm hoping to get a couple more First Life mini-ficlets to go between them. So far, I'm up to two completed. Will they ever intersect? Um... It's like two fics for the price of one! If you've got Scar, Armstrong, Miles & family, Lust, and SexyHoBro requests, throw 'em out there. I might work them in, I might not, but my plotbunnies can't attack me with concepts I've never pondered. Unfortunately, even as fast as the bunnies are attacking me, I'll be on vacation the next couple weeks, so there may or may not be any updates during that time. Which means you lot will have plenty of reviews for me when I get back, right? ;) It'd be equivalent exchange.

As for names, I've got to give props to Dalienna once more for Sherry Miles's maiden name. The other doctor's name comes from a family that's been performing alongside the likes of a certain S. Tucker at the local airshow for generations. (FMA is a gateway drug on so many different levels of nerdiness...)

* * *

"Major Miles. Dr. Wendle-Miles." The months in Ishval since their last visit here melted away as both of them straightened to parade-ground-worthy attention at that voice, saluting as their names were called. Even the girls perked up, Katarie attempting a formal salute of her own. "I'll see you for debriefing in the usual room at fifteen hundred, but first, I see you've brought me some new recruits." The woman smiled, and I felt my spine stiffen under the cool blue gaze.

I wondered what had possessed me to follow the family to this frozen bear's den. Mustang and his cadre were in Ishval, examining farmland and leaving us equally bemused as whether to applaud one another's progress or hide the children before the other alchemist got out of control. The brigadier had been bogged down in paperwork when his men came to look over the railway and ironworks, and I'd been busy with my students when Miles left to consult the Eastern military on the crop rotations and trading goods. Dr. Marcoh had declared his office off-limits to both of us until Mustang and I stopped this "silly" dance of unspoken evasion. The brigadier-general denied it was happening; I kept my mouth shut. I could read Marcoh's ruined face too well to outright lie to the older man.

After a week of such careful avoidance, I'd been more than happy to receive a request mailed from Mei Chan. She'd been asking for any older volumes I might have on the Sage of the West for purposes unmentioned, but I suspected it had to do with a certain tall, blond, golden-eyed alchemist who was much more awkward and humble in the Xingese court than the ancient Sage had ever been in the books. Reading between the lines, a man might suspect that our Xingese princess was trying to perform a much different type of rentan-jitsu with Alphonse Elric than anything they'd asked me to translate into plain Amestrian. The younger Elric brother was kind to my young former traveling companion (though she was no longer quite so young; just because I still pictured Mei as only a few scant years older than Katarie now was didn't mean that the little Xingese alchemist hadn't grown into a young woman in her time back home) and he at least was no more formally attached to the military than I was, which made it easier to accept his friendly overtures, but despite the bravery I'd seen from him during our former lives, the boy was still a bit of a coward when it came to acting on his feelings for a lady of Mei's high rank. Fortunately for her, Mei was no shrinking violet when it came to accomplishing her goals, either, and the true history of the Sage of the West would quickly eliminate the last of Alphonse Elric's reasonable protests.

It had seemed like no trouble to retrieve a few items from my elder brother's hidden library for her and accompany Miles, my red-eyed brother-in-arms and his family back to Briggs until Mustang's dogs had finished their tour. Better to be a guest of Armstrong's bears than their prisoner while in the north, since the major-general looked less kindly upon unannounced visitors to her lands than I did upon Mustang in Ishval, even when I expected him. It had seemed almost a luxury to stay in Fort Briggs instead of sneaking into Brother's tiny, remote hideout from a barren and hostile wilderness where even the local bastion of justice was out to destroy me. Even when revisiting my previous lives, I couldn't deny that things had changed since the Promised Day, mostly for the better.

I had not counted on Major-General Olivia Mira Armstrong.

The tall blonde knelt to look the girls - my goddaughters - the little ones who could call me "Uncle Scar" and put no fear into the sound of my second name - in the eye. "The law of Briggs is survival of the fittest. If you want to eat, you'll have to prove yourselves worthy. You'll have to be smart, strong, and sometimes, just plain lucky." She glanced up briefly, focusing well above Katarie and Millie's heads. Amestrian women, in my experience, might sometimes demonstrate kindness, but there was always a cost to it. Whether reality worked on the flow of chi, Elric's theory, or simply according to the whim of Ishvala, these women lived on equivalent exchange, and they had a long memory that allowed them to extract their tolls at the most disconcerting times. "You'll have to work to earn your keep. Are you up for whatever task I set for you, or should we send you back to the desert you came from?"

"We're ready." Katarie stuck her chin out, and Millie bobbed her head in agreement, wordless in awe for once but just as adamant as her big sister.

"Are you sure you want to let her do this?" I tried to keep my voice down as I bent to whisper in their mother's ear. Miles was wearing that distant expression that I couldn't quite read, and around his general, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to.

"Although 'godmother' is technically not the right term, Miles and I had decided that should anything ever happen to the two of us, there was no one we'd rather raise our girls than General Armstrong and Captain Buccaneer. This was before we'd met you, of course," Dr. Sherry Miles said. Unlike her husband's shades, her thick, clear lenses did nothing to hide the mischievous gleam in her eyes.

Miles and Sherry had certainly weighed heavily on the side of physical defensive capability when choosing godparents. Sherry's extended family was located mostly out west, but naming the Northern Cliff of Briggs as a potential guardian for the girls… Certainly they hadn't picked us based upon all-around polite behavior. "I'm almost afraid to meet this Buccaneer."

"You'd have liked him. The man ate Drachman artillery shells for breakfast and polar bears for dessert. Protected you even if he was stabbing you in the back. Always sang my praises when he came in to get his automail changed out, too." A bear of Briggs with automail… I might have heard of this Captain Buccaneer, after all. Mei had written me about a funeral she'd attended shortly after returning home, for a Yao clan guard who had dealt quite a blow to King Bradley on the Promised Day. Apparently I'd had him and a chainsaw-wielding, automail-armed northerner to thank for weakening Wrath enough for me to destroy the homunculus.

"We're ready, what?" Sherry prompted her girls in an effort to cover for her own lapse in protocol.

"We're ready, ma'am!" the elder, dark-skinned, blue-eyed daughter sounded off.

Millie was still uncharacteristically tongue-tied, but at least squeaked out a "Ma'am!" a second behind Katarie.

"Good." Armstrong drew her sword, placed the naked weapon point-down in front of the young girls. "The defense of this fortress is of the utmost importance to Amestris. If we cannot maintain our line in the snow, Drachma will draw a fresh one with Amestrian blood." There was a soft scrape as the point of her blade made contact with the iron beneath the snowdrift in the doorway as she made her point very literal to the girls. "And it is not simply a matter of the area of the northern border on the map. Briggs has already seen its share of bloodshed, of all types. We are the northern crest in the circle beneath this country. If we cannot hold it, there is no guaranteeing that the next alchemist to activate the Amestrian circle will have as noble a cause as…" She paused to look over the major and me, as if wondering just how much we'd told the girls about the Promised Day and our roles in it. "The Ishvalans."

There was one circle that I hoped could never activate again. With Father draining the energy of the crests and Hohenheim's lost souls freed with our transmutation circles, there was nothing left but a tunnel around the country, a primitive railroad circling Amestris underground that might be a convenience to travelers and border guards with a little more work, but nothing to create homunculi, nothing to destroy the country for something little larger than a human. But leave the knowledge and the architecture available and someone would find the means to reactivate the crests… even if they had to be carved again.

I would share Brother's research with Mei, Alphonse Elric, and Dr. Marcoh, if the elder former State Alchemist wished, but his books stayed hidden in the frozen wastes beyond Briggs. I would take no apprentice. I had time to instruct the next generation in either philosophy or alchemy, and learning alchemy's harsh lessons on the human condition was difficult enough with enough faith to see them through. Brother's research contained the secrets of philosopher's stones and nigh-immortality. Best if our "Ishvalan fusion" passed into the history books, then, with only Mei Chan and the Elric brothers to carry it on because they were too stubborn to let it go. I had no doubt that alchemy could be useful, but this right arm of destruction had ruined too many lives with a "noble" motivation. It should not be spread beyond me, and I trusted that Mei, Alphonse, and Edward Elric had seen enough to appreciate why this was so, even if Mei and the younger Elric boy kept conspiring to insure that I did not completely abandon the art.

Armstrong held her silent gaze as she rose smoothly from the floor, sword still held before her in a low guard, and Katarie and Millie glanced between her, their parents, and me to gauge the adults' reactions. I looked away first. As once and future bears, neither the major nor the doctor blinked. "This is why we need a solid wall of snow around the back of the fort, to insure that no one sneaks in through our rear."

"Uncle Scar might be able to help, ma'am…" Katarie offered tentatively. She knew that I did not perform much alchemy in Ishval. "He's good at building things."

The general's smile was terrifying. "Oh, I have plans for your 'Uncle Scar.' I believe that I owe you a test of your best ephemeral cold-weather defenses, however, and I can't tell you how to improve if I've never seen you in action."

This took a minute to sink in, and then Millie's face lit up like a violet-eyed firecracker. "I'm going to make _lots _of snowballs!" she declared, turning to rush for an exit.

Miles absently caught her by the shoulder. "Wait for dismissal."

"They may go, major. You, too. Take forty-five to settle in; you've had a long trip and I know Wendle will want to put Younkin back in his place," Armstrong dismissed us. Millie took the opportunity to dart, though Katarie dragged her feet a little, as if reluctant to leave her heroine's company.

"That pansy gear-head's still up here?" Sherry laughed in response.

"With you gone, we needed some sort of medical officer. He hasn't frozen off all our limbs and replaced them with automail yet, so he'll serve," Armstrong said, sheathing the blade. Partway down the hall, Katarie's eyes followed her every move.

Miles did not like to discuss former comrades, and even Sherry typically wouldn't share details, but I gathered that she and the automail specialist has gotten off to a rather vitriolic start. "I'm just surprised that he hasn't frozen his own hands off, honestly."

"Go see for yourself." Armstrong dismissed her much more casually than they had arrived, and the rest of the family departed towards their quarters. I could just make out Katarie's half-whispered questions as she tagged along somewhat reluctantly at her father's side.

"Daddy, is it really okay to go play snowballs? General Armstrong sounds really busy and I know Briggs was important, but it's… It's really, really important, isn't it?" Even Katarie's vocabulary was failing her. Although the elder Miles girl generally attempted to copy her father and me in stoicism when not explaining things to her sister, I knew she usually didn't struggle for synonyms quite so much.

"That it is, but we have to keep the men prepared for anything, including being hit with a snowball by a superior officer." Major Miles sounded as if he were contemplating tossing a few handfuls of his own. "If it makes you feel any better, General Armstrong and Briggs aren't alone when it comes to guarding the crests…" I started to follow them, half-curious and half-worried to find out how much Miles would tell her and what sort of further questions these answers would bring up.

Then I heard my name. My first full name, upon a woman's lips as it had never been spoken to me since the day my mother had died. I turned and faced the general. "I don't believe you were dismissed. I'm not done with you yet."

Of course. She had bribed the girls, and they had charmed the village elders and written in with their success. By my will or not, Armstrong would discover exactly what she wanted to. "There is still quite a lot of reconstruction going on down in the sub-basement, and an alchemist would speed the process immensely."

Still feeling as if I had suddenly been transported back in time some twenty-odd (if not nearly forty) years, I bowed rather stiffly, hands automatically coming up to adjust my sunglasses and subtly determine that my namesake scar was indeed still there. "I am a teacher in Ishvala's service, madam. My brother is -" Was. I had died twice. Brother was not so cursed. We each had made our choices. "Was the alchemy expert."

She pulled my hands away from my temples, at least refraining from pushing my sleeves up as she caught the wrists in one strong, gloved palm and wide-stretched fingers and used the other hand to tilt my chin up. The shades slipped down my nose, leaving me to stare directly into those frozen-summer-glacier-blues. "I do have the right name, don't I? The girls tried to give me the elder brother's name at first, but further research suggested that he wore glasses for more than obscuring his eye color." I nodded as far as I could into her fingertips without appearing to dip my face into her palm. Brother had always been more concerned with finding the truth than hiding it, even when it might cost him his life. "They call you Scar. May I no longer call you what I wish, Ishvalan? The old name suits you better."

I pushed her hands away and stepped back. I needed breathing space if I was going to look Olivia Armstrong in the eye. "I would appreciate it if you stuck with 'Ishvalan.'"

She nodded her consent - at least for now. My birth name had become a weapon on her lips and she would save her weapons for opportune moments. "If you are a teacher, then, Ishvalan, I would appreciate if you would give my men a lesson in your style of unarmed combat. Even without the alchemy, I've met few faster fighters."

"I suppose I could give a short demonstration while I'm here…" I allowed. Like alchemy, the way of the warrior-monk was incomplete without the morals behind the methods. There were quite a few young boys back in Ishval eager to begin to walk the path, but more than half of them dropped out before they had even begun the physical training. For Armstrong and her bears, I had little doubt that they could handle the physical side of things, but as kind as she might be at times, I knew there was a pure seam of ruthlessness fueling even her most generous actions, and she'd trained her men to be the same. Miles aside, I was not sure how well Ishvala's teachings could combine with the unbending rule of Briggs: unapologetic survival of the fittest.

"Good. You can meet me for sparring practice at seventeen hundred, once you've completed work on the generator downstairs." She pointed the way towards the sub-basement.

"No matter what Mei Chan or the Elric boy may have told you, General, I really do not perform alchemy these days." Not often, God willing.

"Then you'd best get moving. I don't care how you fix it, but don't expect any sympathy if the water heater still isn't working after our match. I haven't had a good sparring partner in nearly three and a half years, and I intend to make use of you to the fullest, Ishvalan." She was practically purring. I watched her leave, feeling as tongue-tied as Millie Miles. As I watched the general leave, there was a chill down the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the climate.


	4. First Life: Heat Blind

A/N: The alchemy prodigy who's missing an arm for his sibling's sake and his badass little brother (who's a fair hand with alchemy himself)? They're not mine. I don't own Fullmetal or Alphonse, either, for that matter, let alone the rest of the fandom. Otherwise, Scar'd kill me.

Thanks to my reviewers so far, tehPandaPatrol, RedChinese, and NebulaCoyote, as well as all of the faves and alerts! To be honest, Olivia and Scar is a bit like Harry Potter's Luna and Neville, Discworld's Vetinari and Margolotta, Avatar's Toph and Sokka, Dr. Who's Romana and title character, or Star Wars' Mara and Lando to me: two awesome characters who make an insanely epic team when put together, even if they're really not meant to be romantically linked. (Though I won't deny that the Oliviar pairing has its appeals... It's just hard to set it up and not feel OOC, out of left field, and/or rushed, same as Rayne in Firefly. Hence, I shamelessly ship-tease like a wanderlust-filled fisherman's cat.) As to Scar's age... I'm not sure I'd ever have an exact age for you, but I figure he's about Roy's age, maybe a year or two older. Hence, four years after the Promised Day, he'd be around thirty-five, and in this setting before the war, he'd be only about nineteen.

* * *

"I'm just saying that I was surprised that you didn't invite her along." I shaded my eyes against the sun. There were landmarks out here, for one who was observant and careful, but they could change as quickly as the wind over the sands.

Brother waved me off, checking the angles of our foreshortened shadows against the compass. "The theory is still incomplete."

"I thought that was what you alchemists lived for: everything on God's good earth is a puzzle to you, and you can't rest until you've had the joy of solving them all. Try another mystery, for once." I thumped my chest, as if he didn't know exactly what sort of mystery I was speaking about.

"Surely you're not encouraging me to put aside good works in order to go haring off after a girl, o golden boy. That's sloth _and _lust."

"I am simply trying to encourage charity, Brother. If Solaris is half as curious as you are, she'd gladly follow you into the desert to see the ruins of Xerxes. She says she has two brothers in the army, after all, and she's certainly never appeared much worse for wear after taking the caravans. She'd surely have an excellent time helping you uncover your ancient enigmas and proving your theories, and if not…" I grinned at him cheekily, hitching my pack higher across my shoulders.

He caught me by the strap and pulled me into a headlock, knuckling a fist in my hair. "Don't you dare even finish that thought, Little Brother."

I allowed him to maintain his grip longer than I might have back in Kanda City proper before twisting and reversing the hold, kicking up a spray of sand. I even let him wriggle away, chuckling at our sudden burst of childishness. I'd missed this horseplay. Brother had had less and less time for a teenager's nonsense as his studies of alchemy and world history and modern international politics ate away his days, and few of those seemed to leave him as carefree and content as he once had been. It had made me worry, honestly. I was as dedicated to the priesthood as he was to his alchemy, and gentle sibling rivalry aside, I knew I had his support on my path as surely as he had mine, but I feared that those paths led in separate directions, rarely to meet. "All I was going to say was that the two of you would be alone in potentially romantic environs."

"Except for my little lecher of a brother." He wiped the lenses of his glasses off on his shirt, probably adding nearly as much dirt as he'd smudged off of them. "You would still want to come with us, wouldn't you?" _Do you really care about what I'm trying to do, or are you only humoring your big brother? _he asked in the question beneath the question.

"Why wouldn't I want to join you if Solaris is with you, too?" I attempted to reassure him, knocking his arm with a light fist. I didn't have the same fervor for alchemy that Brother did - even before I could use it myself, my views had been colored by generations of distrust for the technique, but it was his passion, his love, and I loved my ever-curious, half-heretical older brother. "You're a lucky man. Don't let her get away, or another may show her more attention."

"Who, you?" Brother chuckled, and whatever airs I might have put on evaporated into the desert breeze. Although the priesthood might be a respectable career, a young trainee had little chance of getting enough time to meet women, let alone court one, especially if most of his precious free periods were consumed in assisting his elder brother with his research. "The theory isn't complete yet, that's all," he murmured under his breath, as if in apology to God and Solaris as much as in excuse to me.

"What does this theory have to do with spending time with your girlfriend?" Besides taking up more of his time than the selfish part of me that my teachers told me to put aside could stand.

Brother shook his head. "Nothing, immediately, but everything, eventually."

"As mysterious as a sand-cat on cactus juice, you are," I muttered, giving him a long stare.

He sighed and adjusted his glasses. "Once I can prove my findings, I think it should easily be enough to apply for a state license. With a steady income from that, well, I know she doesn't necessarily need the money, but I want to make a good husband for her. Besides, it would be nice to show Mother just once that this isn't just some expensive and blasphemous little hobby; it actually can make people happy."

A state license? My brother, a State Alchemist? Either this really was love, or my brother had gone mad. I was not yet ready to rule out both. "A State Alchemist? Mother would be in a rage if you did that. I'm not even sure Father could handle an Amestrian soldier for a son." Brother attempted to protest, but I was working up a decent temper of my own. Wrath had always been the cardinal sin with which I struggled the most. "Hellfire, Brother, I'm surprised you're not getting angry at yourself for merely considering it. State Alchemists are bound to serve Amestris's Fuhrer whenever he or the council call for them, and you've always hated Amestrian politics, especially where they've interfered with Ishval. How can you become yet another weapon in their arsenal?"

He looked at his feet, then pulled his compass back out and continued on his way to the ruins of Xerxes without a word. I called his name, hurrying along after him, but his shoulders were set and he wouldn't look back at me. I don't know what his thoughts were on: Solaris, Ishval, alchemy, the military, his family, the uncertainties of the future, the dead lands before us… but I feared those thoughts would steal him away from me.

_Not yet, _I prayed, as I had before and would for the rest of my life, even after he was gone from my sight. _Please, God, don't take him from me yet._


	5. Third Life: Basic Steps

A/N: Me? I own nothin'. Quick warning for a two-year time-skip here, for those of you doing the math at home, as well as a very minor reference to "Luxury." And the words of the day, ladies and gents, are "ship-tease," "evil Warg," and "thanks!" to my repeat reviewers. I am _way_ behind on the first anime, having learned most of what I know about it via AMVs and TV Tropes, but it's hard to imagine him much younger than early twenties/late teens at the time of the Massacre - Winry would have been about nine, and Hughes about 25, according to the timelines I've seen. As to what makes Scarbro abandon the idea and how much Lust is actually influencing him... that's next chapter.

* * *

I heard the silky sound of a drawn sword before my fist hit the door a second time. "Who's there?" The woman's voice sounded slightly garbled, as if I'd awoken her suddenly from a well-deserved sleep, but she'd never been one to waste words even under much more formal circumstances.

"It's me." If she was expecting a terrifying madman in the night, she was about five years too late. "Miles and Sherry have been looking for their girls. It's past their bedtime."

"So they sent you?" She didn't yet invite me in, and I didn't press her. The muffled noises on the far side of the door suggested that she had sheathed her sword for the nonce, but I wouldn't interrupt her primping while she had it on her. I'd been stabbed enough even before meeting her, and it would be a pity to have to destroy and recreate the blade that she was so proud to have handed down to her through generations of her family.

"I know the girls look up to you." Which was true, but then, their parents knew it, too, and there had been something almost worrying about the major's smile as he and his wife split off to canvass the grounds and the west wing of the Armstrong mansion, leaving me to recruit the proprietor herself in our search.

She opened the door wearing a rather rumpled uniform, a single tall curl sticking up from the center of her hairline. It rather reminded me of a cross between her brother's trademark single wisp of curl and Edward Elric's perpetual cowlick. "There's no need to worry," she informed me shortly, stepping far enough to the side that I could see the two lumps in the master bedcovers. "They wore themselves out. Now, if that's all you need to report to Miles, I will bid you a good night."

I bowed slightly in agreement. "Good night then, General." At least I'd located the girls, and despite some of the rumors I'd heard circulated around Briggs, even the steadfast Cliff herself needed her rest. "You know, I would have never imagined you as much of a doting godmother," I murmured as she reached for the door.

"Three younger sisters. And Alex." She shrugged, lingering a little longer in the doorway as she attempted to brush her wayward hair back into its usual militarily precise waves with her free hand. "It's more logical an assumption than you as the godfather who spoils them overmuch, yet here we are."

While Katarie and Millie did know how to pull my heartstrings, I never purposely spoiled them. I simply believe in rewarding their cleverness and good behavior so that they need never consider the other cycles of human interaction. "Those two, and children like them, are the future of our people. I cherish the opportunity to shape their lives for the better."

Armstrong nodded briefly. "Survival of the species as a whole depends upon our offspring. Which is why Katarie and Millie need to learn how to fend for themselves without you coddling them." Though the droop of her eyelids suggested that she still desperately needed some rest, the general was awake enough to bring a little fire to her mien while we were on the topic of the Miles girls. "I swear, if I hear one more time that 'Uncle Scar takes care of this,' or 'We could ask Uncle Scar about that; _he_ knows all about it…'"

Olivia Armstrong shot me a death glare, but I couldn't help but take it as a back-handed compliment. When we were in Ishval, not trading offices with Vato Falman in an elaborate and unspoken game of spies, alliances, and hostages against a second grab for the Fuhrer's seat, the girls were forever carrying on about what General Armstrong would do under their current circumstances, what _she'd _approve of. "I will wipe that ridiculous grin off your face, Ishvalan."

"Yes, ma'am." I attempted to still my features back to quietude; I hadn't even realized I was smiling. "I assume that Miles and Sherry get some say in their daughters' upbringing, at least?"

"Of course; he's my commanding officer on duty," Armstrong deadpanned. I doubted that she was completely serious, but she offered no clue in her tone or manner. "I ought to send you both back through basic," she added under her breath, then turned at the sound of falling covers.

"Gen'ral Armstrong?" Millie Miles yawned, pulling her oversized wrap more snugly around her shoulders. More than half the quilt dragged out behind her across the bedroom carpet. Her elder sister shifted in her sleep, groaning as she attempted to burrow back into the warmth. "Uncle Scar?" She rubbed her eyes as if unsure of my existence. If I didn't beat a hasty retreat and allow Armstrong to return to bed, I wasn't sure how much longer I'd survive this situation, either. "We're doing a girls' night in, uncle. No boys allowed; that's the rules." Her shrug was exaggerated under the quilt as if to silently apologize for turning me away.

"It's not like we could do much with that sorry excuse for a rat-tail even if he did stay." Armstrong's curled forelock had strayed upwards again, and I fought back a sudden impulse to brush it behind her ear. "Now let's go back to bed, Millie."

"You did let your parents know about this girls' night, didn't you?" I asked her as Armstrong shepherded the littlest one back into the shadows of the room. She didn't have a night-light for the girls, but then Miles usually blew out the candle at their bedside back home once they'd gone to sleep, as well. "Your mother will probably be disappointed to have missed out."

Millie shook her head. "We told Mommy and Daddy that we'd spend all day with General Armstrong. That way Mommy and Daddy can have time to themselves." The final phrase sounded as if she'd been informed of how much that would mean to them, but not why. With two active little girls, Sherry and Miles could really use the rest.

"And they meant all day," Armstrong added in a tone that could almost be mistaken for pride in her godchildren. "I'd think that you would need time off yourself, Ishvalan."

"I am a teacher," I reminded her once more. "These two are some of my favorite students."

Millie beamed at me. "Since Uncle Scar's already here, can he come kiss us goodnight?" She raised a blanket-swaddled arm to pull at the general's wrinkled uniform shirt.

"I don't see why not," Olivia Armstrong replied, though she plucked away the girl's fingers and sent me a look that offered more hellfire than all of my training as a warrior-monk of Ishvala could have prepared me for. "Hop in."

Carefully avoiding contact with the general as I gingerly entered her master bedroom, I straightened the blanket back over my nieces by heart, if not by blood. "Goodnight, Millie." I kissed her on the forehead.

"G'night." She giggled softly to herself and cuddled closer to her elder sister. "Katarie too."

"Goodnight to Katarie, too." There was no flurry of movement under the tangle of sheets, but the small patch of snarled white-blond hair I could reach without digging groaned something that might be politely translated as "goodnight" as my lips brushed the top of her head.

"An' General Armstrong," Millie Miles insisted behind half-closed lids.

Armstrong and I looked at each other. I'd sat down on the edge of the bed to tuck in the girls; she stood just beyond it, waiting for me to finish. Her arms were crossed and her expression was guarded, but I thought I caught a hint of panic in her eyes. It could have simply been revulsion. "Millie, sweetie…" I started, unsure how to pacify my stubborn young goddaughter enough to get her to sleep without getting killed by a nearly-as-cranky-when-sleep-deprived general.

"That will not be necessary," Armstrong filled in firmly, silently ordering me away from the bed. I moved. "I have no need or desire for a goodnight kiss."

"Don't know what you're missing." Fortunately, Millie was tired enough that she wouldn't argue too much. "Uncle Scar gives good g'dnight kisses."

I really didn't know how she could hold me responsible for what came out of Miles's daughters' mouths. I couldn't help but grin as she narrowed her eyes and harrumphed, stopping me in my tracks for the door. She pointed at me, mouthing the word "basic." Taking a deep breath, she sat back on the edge of the bed and leaned over Millie, kissing her firmly on the cheek. "But I give better ones. Go to sleep, Millie; I'll be right back."

Step One of basic training under Olivia Armstrong was five laps around the manor at midnight, the general herself in hot pursuit, sword at the ready, with only short pauses to inform Sherry and Miles that their daughters were asleep, so one had better flee quietly enough to keep them that way and avoid waking up the general's parents and youngest sister in the far wing if one could help it. They'd likely join the lady of the house in her somewhat-less-than-merry chase. Step Two was getting up early the next morning to clean up the mess of alchemized walls that one had built to buy oneself time and she had hacked through in what felt like no time at all.

"So, you and the general have a wild night after getting the girls to bed?" Sherry asked me when I finally turned up for Briggs signature blend bitter coffee around eleven. The short blonde looked to be on her third cup.

"You might say that." She and her husband glanced at my ragged ponytail, unshaven chin, drooping shoulders, and dust-covered, rumpled clothes that I hadn't changed since yesterday, looked at each other, and smiled. I now understood why Armstrong had wanted to kill me slowly last night.

"On the bright side, if you survive her, you're one of hers. Welcome to the bears of Briggs, red-eyed brother." I really had never wished to join the Amestrian military, but appeared that as usual, God and the General had other plans, whether I formally signed on or not. At this point, my most sensible choice was to keep silent and drink the coffee. Step Three would come when I least expected it.


	6. First Life: Origins of the Sins

A/N: I don't even own our special guest palm tree or bottomless pit, or even the hunk of stone inside the latter. No slash intended, we swears, but I ain't stopping you from reading it that way. (Brain bleach will be provided, for those of you who'd rather not see it. Solaris does Eternal Sunshine very expertly, or so I'm told.) Although I borrow shamelessly from the first anime for stray bits of crack, "Briggs summer" omake aside, the white hair is a common ethinic trait in the manga and 'Hood Ishvalans, too, with only Scar's Sensei rocking the dark 'stache in the manga. Ah, crack theories, why must you come so easily when my computer is in the shop and the next chapter has not yet been uploaded?

* * *

"He's getting too close!" The soldier didn't sound jealous of my brother, but he certainly sounded worried about what he might do. And any actions that this angered military man might take in response certainly left me worried for Brother.

Solaris, at least, appeared to take this outburst in stride. "He has to get a glimpse if he's going to be of any use to us. He's still only a potential candidate, not a candidate yet."

"There are other potential candidates." The soldier dismissed her defense. "Hell, Marcoh is already a prime candidate, and if we can find Hohenheim-"

"If we could find Hohenheim, we would still need three more," Solaris cut him off. "We have potentials and rumors, nothing more. I say we develop those potentials, not waste our time with pursuing shadows. Let Pride take care of that."

"You've been 'developing' this guy for months, and what do we have to show for it? A religious dune-monkey with an unhealthy interest in Xerxes! You think he'll just walk in and sign on once he realizes what happened there?" How could they know about Xerxes? Brother had been studying its history for years, and even he had little idea of what had caused its end. I knew Solaris had been hiding things from us, but I had never guessed how much.

I had never really tried to ferret out her secrets before, honestly; even this round of spying had been caused by my brother's silence since our last disastrous expedition and the sight of Solaris walking companionably with an Amestrian recruitment officer rather than any real concern about the intentions that lay beneath her pretty face. "He won't be able to perform the transmutation unless he learns how. I've sent Gluttony to chivvy him back home once he's had a little look around and then destroy all evidence. At least you could pretend to be pleased about getting rid of the last traces of Xerxes."

The solider chuckled, an evil sound that put my nerves on edge. "Where's the fun in knocking down the anthill if the insects are already dead? Maybe Gluttony'll give him a reason to try human transmutation, at least…"

This was bad. I had to get out of here and warn Brother, but I would have to be silent and unseen if I wanted to get away with my life. The Amestrian officer was openly armed, and I had the feeling that his gun was the least of my worries.

"Oh, I have plans for that. He has a younger brother that he loves more than his powerless god. The boy is rash, religiously fanatical, easily insulted, quick to violence and slow to forgive; it'd be easy to get him on the wrong side of a gang of Amestrian soldiers and play the terrified, tender-hearted fiancée who insists that he save the poor little dear by any means possible." I was struggling not to prove her description of me entirely accurate at that sarcastically melodramatic tone of voice.

Better to just get out of here. The soldier's laugh dogged my heels as I ran for the alleyway, determined to make straight into the desert and save my brother. "Lust, did you bring me a new toy?" His voice had deepened and multiplied, echoes of unfamiliar screams and pleading gibberish accompanying its edges. I barely heard the _whoosh _of the oncoming black lances before I felt them sweep by my cheek, and I tore out of the alleyway into the crowded streets of Kanda City, murmuring prayers beneath my breath. Were it not for my training, I would have been dead.

When I dared glance behind me, I saw Solaris standing alone at the corner, staring speculatively at me as she picked at the fingertips of her black gloves, her lips drawn tight. Her companion was nowhere to be seen.

I ran into Brother before I reached the edge of the city. He gripped me by the shirt, searching my face in fear for a moment before pulling me into a crushing bear hug against his rapidly beating heart. "There's something out there in the ruins," he panted.

I hugged him back just as fiercely. "You have no idea."


	7. Third Life: To Make God Laugh

A/N: This is an attempt to rewrite my original chapter seven; unfortunately, my computer died before I uploaded it and the system was dead like a dead thing. Much like Alphonse, the hivemind had to be relocated into a tin can and it took me a bit to recover it all. Fortunately, the world of Fullmetal Alchemist wasn't mine to begin with. Well, at least it doesn't count as a writing relationship fumble if no one else's mind is as deeply in the gutter as yours to recognize the same unintentional ho!yay. The classic Achmed the Dead Terrorist joke reference here, however, is as entirely intentional as the Olivieer hints. Someone actually did a version with Kimbley and Scar that works surprisingly well, for as little footage as was used.

* * *

Katarie flicked a page idily, but her thoughts were obviously more focused on the grass stem bookmark she twirled between her fingers than the letters on the pages before her. Millie didn't even try to pretend, her eyes straying beyond the gardens towards the mansion where her father sat attendance upon his general, her book left open and unheeded in the grass. The girls had begun to fidget as the end of the workday got closer and closer, and I gave up on getting much more reading out of them. "If you're not going to read, you can at least _speak_ Ishvalan until your parents get off duty," I compromised, closing my lesson book. Like many of the younger generation, the Miles girls had picked up a Creole of the language mixed with Amestrian from their elders who had survived the slums, but proper Ishvalan grammar, I feared, was becoming as dead a language as the priests' Old Ishvalan that my brother had used for his research notes.

They nodded in comprehension, but conversation was limited, repetitive, and if its one-sidedness would come as no surprise to those who knew me and my goddaughters, the respective roles might have been. Millie had become very good at her basic phrases, at least: "Will Daddy be home soon?" "What time is it?" "Do you think Mommy will have to stay late, Uncle Scar?" "How much longer until General Armstrong is done?" Katarie would reply when spoken to, but it was clear that her mind was on other things, as well.

It had been a balmy day, our last one at the Armstrong mansion before we headed back east, and I'd given into the girls' cajoling and held our daily lesson outside under the trees. Armstrong could call me "coddler" all she wished. Perhaps such things were common in their mother's homeland, but as Briggs-born Ishvalans, the shady, verdant expanse of garden lawn was as exotic to my students as the jungles south of Xing or the ocean west of Creta and as such, could offer their own teachings.

Katarie stroked the grass beneath her hand, seemingly entranced by the feel of a ground surface that was neither unyielding like ice or steel, nor soft and formless as sand and snow, but warm, firm, and moist like a living thing with live things living above the earth, beneath it, within it. Though she might not be giving the lesson I had had planned much attention, who was I to argue if God had a deeper one for her? Grammar might wait for my godchild to discover how far and how subtly the true lands of Ishvala extended; our people had been made for the desert, but our God had populated the entire world with many, many different creations, all of which depended upon one another to continue His works. In this living soil, Katarie might find a microcosm of the Divine's greater intricacies.

"The surest way to make God laugh is to tell Him and your students your lesson plans," I murmured to myself, placing my book aside.

"Sorry, Uncle Scar?" Katarie's head shot up guiltily. "I didn't get all that."

I put my left hand over hers, feeling grass prickle between our fingers. "Just something my teacher said to me when I first came back to Ishval." She looked nervous, as I surely had seemed a much more intimidating figure when I had met them then and there. I'd cleaned up before Miles formally introduced me to his family, healed of the worst of my physical ills, but Scar had still remained.

I shook my head with a light smile, banishing the image of the bloodied, battle-haunted alchemist I had been in my last life as best I could. "It is something you will understand later, when young ones come to you for advice."

"But Katarie and I aren't going to be teachers, Uncle Scar," Millie insisted. "We're going to be soldiers, just like Daddy and Mommy and General Armstrong."

_The surest way to make God laugh…_ I repeated to myself, half in regret and half in prayer. At least Grumman did not start wars. Under the new Fuhrer, there were no more "uprisings" that ended in a city or a people within Amestris destroyed. But Drachma, Aerugo, and Creta had not forgotten Bradley and had not entirely forgiven us for him, even as Grumman attempted to pull back the troops. The Eastern front might be quiet, but there was still a need for soldiers in the North, and I feared there would be until long after Miles's girls came of age.

"If you think about it, Uncle Scar's sort of like a soldier, too, even though he's a teacher," Katarie said slowly, stilling her hands in the grass and looking over at her little sister. "Mom healed him after he fought in the war, and if she can be a doctor and a soldier, there's no reason a soldier can't be a teacher, too. Dad and General Armstrong teach us stuff."

"Like waiting," Millie agreed petulantly, wiping her hands on her skirt. "How much longer, Uncle Scar?"

"They'll be here soon enough," I hedged, as I had before and would again. Just because they knew better than to expect their mother sharply at quitting time didn't mean that the Miles girls - Millie Miles, especially, - were entirely at peace with Armstrong's unflagging drive for less tangible political goals here in Central, especially when the general's work kept their father swept up in her wake. "But Katarie is right: part of being a good officer like your father or General Armstrong is teaching others what to do. Sometimes, that can be a very difficult duty indeed." I tried to keep the irony out of my voice, and it appeared to pass over the younger sister's head, at least.

"You think kids'll be asking us about things when we're big?" Millie bounced up and assumed a decent impression of Armstrong's imperial bearing as she strutted around the tree. "Why yes, General Katarie and I remember back when the Fuhrer was a little girl at Fort Briggs…" The impersonation was somewhat spoiled by her sister's infectious giggling that left Millie barely repressing her laughter, much less her smile.

"Of course Major Millie and I grew up with her." Katarie tried and failed to regain a deadpan expression.

Millie's face fell for a moment. "How come I have to be a major and you get to be a general?" Despite their silliness, I knew that this playacting wasn't too far from the future they wanted: Armstrong as Grumman's successor, and they as her loyal inner circle.

"'Cause you're younger. General Armstrong's baby brother is a major, Dad's a major, and I think even Major Breda's got an older sister…" Katarie ticked off on her fingers.

"Yeah, but Mr. Ed is a major, too, and all he's got is a younger brother," her little sister pointed out.

"Mr. Al's not in the military, though." For six years, Alphonse Elric may as well have been. He had worked as hard as his brother during the elder Elric's years as a State Alchemist, forever on the move, accompanying Edward on whatever task Mustang set them at, and I had tried to kill him, too, in my time hunting the demon dogs of the military. I tried not to think about the fact that Katarie was barely a year younger than Alphonse had been when his brother received the state license that had nearly been both Elrics' death warrant, barely two years younger than Edward Elric had been when he became a pawn of the homunculus-ruled military.

"Neither is Uncle Scar." It was different now, I tried to tell myself. Fuhrer Grumman did not wage needless war. General Armstrong would not send children to the front lines. Even Mustang, Brigadier Bastard though he might be, would rather be the Hero of Ishval for helping to save our people, not for nearly destroying us. No matter what succession crisis might grip us once Grumman died or retired, it would be a choice between two adult generals with experience leading and a solid support staff - dare I say, families, even if Olivia Armstrong took no husband and remained distant from her blood brother and sisters - of their own, not teenagers sent into a foreign country and wary of their half-siblings.

"Yeah, but Mom and Dad have called him a bear, too." Katarie looked at me to settle this, to reveal my status as a secret high-ranking weapon of Briggs and prove her theory.

To think that I had been upset when Brother had toyed with the idea of getting a state license… "I served as a warrior-monk of Ishval. We had no title other than Brother. To earn even so much as the rank of major in the Amestrian army, you would have to work very, very hard and always follow those rules General Armstrong taught you. There is no room for weakness in the military. There is little enough room for love, kindness, or God, either, which is why I choose not serve as a soldier of Briggs." I have merely been press-ganged.

"That's not true!" There were tears stinging the corners of Millie's eyes. "Mommy and Daddy love us and each other and God, and so does General Armstrong." While I'd be tempted to argue the details of that last point, Millie was upset enough, and Armstrong did care about her godchildren, at least.

"I'm not saying that they don't try. They're still human; still children of God, but in wartime… a soldier cannot afford not to think of himself and his people, but he cannot afford to think of the people on the other side as human beings." Not until it was much too late to do anything about it. "There are things that I wish you girls never need to learn. Some of these things, a soldier, especially an officer, must know by heart."

"What are you corrupting the girls with now, Ishvalan?" Armstrong must have caught the pained expression behind my hand, and combining it with the defiance on the girls' faces, she rightfully assumed that this was more than just a silly mistake in their lesson.

"Daddy!" Millie switched effortlessly back into Amestrian, leaping up and informing her father of the hideous slander I'd spoken against his profession. I remained seated beneath the tree.

"The law of Briggs," I summarized for the general.

"Uncle Scar has seen the dark side of the military," Miles said diplomatically, taking one of his daughters under each arm. "He worries about you. Perhaps overmuch, especially if we can keep you at Briggs or Eastern, but my red-eyed brother is not entirely without justification."

"But kindness and God aren't weaknesses, at least not ones that make you unfit. You can't be strong all the time, so sometimes you've got to send out positive energy so that it comes back and protects you when you're weak. It's like the little packrats gathering up their nests: they're weak by themselves, but they can build something strong together." Katarie looked embarrassed by her outburst almost as soon as the last word left her mouth, but I don't think Miles could be prouder of her. I knew I was.

"Katarie, I think you'll do all right." Ruffling his eldest's blonde hair, Miles dismissed himself and the children with a contented nod to me and the general. Armstrong returned the salute, a hint of a smile gleaming in her eyes as she watched the three of them walk away to finish packing.

"I think you've just been trumped out of position as favorite godparent," General Armstrong remarked, never turning her eyes from the family as she leaned against the tree.

I shrugged, turning to pick up the lesson-books. "Ishvala chose the best parents for those girls. I merely assist them. This is the way of a godfather."

"You love Katarie and Millie," she said bluntly.

That was true, but rather a strange topic for conversation with her. "You make it sound as if one should be worried about their safety." I kept my voice dry, unsure what she was after. "They're my nieces, my goddaughters, the closest I'll have to children of my own. Of course I love them."

"The problem with you alchemists is that you always want to extend your lives past their natural boundaries." I raised an eyebrow, wondering if this wasn't some vengeance for my earlier dismissal of soldiers. "You may be looking to do it in a more natural fashion, but you've got that twinkle in your eyes, Ishvalan. You want to father your own children."

I couldn't speak. What does a man say to that, especially when it comes from a (single, female, and undeniably attractive) former enemy who has saved his life and now holds a position of power over him?

"Even if you did, your children would end up like those girls: they'd want lives of their own someday. They won't be an opportunity for a fourth life for you."

"I have had enough lives of my own," I replied as steadily as I could, even if I could not maintain eye contact. "I simply wish to see the next generation grow up without corruption from the Homunculi or their wars. I want them safe. After all the blood on our hands, they deserve to be safe."

"They will be." Olivia Armstrong dropped a hand to my shoulder, paying it no more attention than if she'd found a conveniently sized stump to rest a hand on. "Katarie and Millie will help make sure that they are, even when you and I are gone. They'll be two old war dogs from a generation who have been able to concentrate more on reparations than revenge."

For a moment, I pictured Millie Miles strutting around the trees again, her sister sitting in the grass before her, but this time I saw them as grown women, dressed in military blues. I closed my eyes against the image, but it was not unbearable. It was a kinder picture than it would have been for an Ishvalan girl of my generation. "And what about you, general? You don't fear that they'll be too gentle, too soft for your bears?"

"A pair of spoiled, stubborn, idealistic, high-bred girls who got everything they wanted as children except discipline and a purpose for being alive?" Armstrong surveyed her manor with a practiced eye. "They'll be fine. They're smart, and they come from a good military tradition, despite an embarrassment or two of an alchemist in the family." She squeezed my shoulder and let go.

I stood next to her, rearranging the books beneath my arm. "And what of the other matter, Olivia Armstrong?" I asked more softly. I couldn't look her in the eye.

"What, kids? Or living forever?" she snorted, crossing her arms. "I'm not afraid to die when I am no longer fit to live, and no matter what I might say to lure Bradley's lapdogs into a trap, the concept of aging does not bother me."

"You don't want to pass along whatever blood made you so 'fit' to the next generation, then?"

It was her turn to look away, shrugging in response. "What I want is of no consequence. I'm too old bear children even if I could stomach the concept of military-brat preacher's kids with red eyes and the Armstrong curl, so the mansion goes to the Mustangs, my sword to whichever of the girls rises higher in rank before I die, and Briggs command to Henshel, if Millie and Katarie aren't ready for it."

"No one said that they had to be mine." I didn't seem to be able to raise my voice above its current softness. I blamed the humidity in the air.

She laughed and said my name. "Why else would a man with that look in his eye be asking me?"

"For comparison's sake," I said, which was not a complete lie. "One might wonder where you learned to recognize the expression."

Armstrong rose from the tree, her face drawn and inscrutable, but a hint of buried pain in her blue eyes. "Do not ask me that, Scar." Before I had the chance to question her further, she turned and walked back inside.


	8. First Life: What Lies Beneath

A/N: Indiana Jones music and/or "Battle Schezro," "In the Land of Ishvala" and "Ishbal" on loop is entirely optional here. I don't own them either way.

* * *

I kept my guard up. I truly did try to let go of my anger, the fears behind it, and give myself more time to concentrate on God, my family, and what threats might actually be lurking behind Solaris's pretty face. She was connected to the Amestrian military, but she did not control them. She might try to arrange an "accident," but she could not force me into a confrontation. There was no telling what she could or could not truly do to me or my brother.

Which, of course, left me paranoid.

I tried to warn my brother. After his encounter with the beast she'd called Gluttony in the ruins, he couldn't dismiss my concerns out of hand. He was reluctant to speak on the matter, but Brother could not bring himself to consider the creature merely as a mirage of the lonely ruins. We'd both been lucky to escape and had the marks to prove it, not that we could put the experiences into words that would make sense to someone who had not been there as we had. Without one another, I might fear that I was losing my mind as well as my elder sibling. Brother certainly acted as if he feared that possibility.

When our parents asked him, Brother dismissed his bruises and missing supplies as a simple mishap upon his expedition. To me, however, he relayed in fits and starts and subtle references his unwanted confrontation with Gluttony.

At first, Brother had thought the being a fellow explorer, though the pale, hairless, rotund man it resembled certainly didn't look the type. Sucking on a finger, dressed in sleeveless close-fitting black clothes of a material Brother did not recognize, with no supplies to hand, Gluttony had resembled an oversized lost child rather than one seeking enlightenment in the remains of Xerxes.

"Can I help you?" Brother had loosened his pack from his shoulders, stopping just beyond arm's length. The infantile expression and relative shortness belied just how large this creature was. Although my elder brother felt some empathy for this pitifully out-of-place being, every hair on the back of his neck was screaming for him to keep out of its reach.

Reluctantly it popped its finger from its mouth. "Lust said I couldn't eat you," it informed him. "But it's so hot and I haven't had anything else today… Maybe just a little bite?" Gluttony licked its lips with a wide tongue, and something besides sweat dripped down its chin.

Brother started to back away. His steps were slow at first, his eyes widened and locked on the dark, piggish eyes set in the round, blobby face, just above the drooling mouth. He felt like a man confronting a maddened jackal and not wishing to give off any trace of fear. "That would be less than ideal." Never breaking eye contact, he reached for his canteen. They were too far out in the desert for him to walk home without it, but better to risk heat exhaustion and dehydration if it meant getting away from this unhinged monstrous man-child. "Here, have some water instead." He threw the canteen as far from his clearest escape path as he could, but those large, blunt teeth just grinned wider.

This was the point, Brother told me, when he started to run.

He scrambled through the ruins as fast as he could - the gluttonous creature was fast, faster than him over flat stretches, but my brother could burrow between tighter deadfalls than the creature could ever hope to manage, and one did not need a warrior's training to remain silent in comparison to the beast.

Sheltered under a half-fallen archway, my older brother stared at the ancient mural across from his hiding place, his ears cocked for the heavy footfalls and heavier, high-pitched whine of his pursuer. He allowed himself a faint sigh of relief as Gluttony panted past him and relaxed enough to wipe the worst of the dirt from his glasses.

Brother was reluctant to share the next part, and not simply because he feared any mockery from me - we were all well aware of how easily a consummate researcher such as my elder sibling could be distracted from such a minor detail such as life-threatening danger by a fresh lead. There was something about that mural that captivated the alchemist in him, or perhaps terrified him would be the better word. I knew not why he'd mentioned the mural when he wouldn't offer any more detail without shuddering, but he'd refused to tell anyone what was so important about it as to steal away his concentration, even me.

While under its spell, Brother did not notice Gluttony's sniffing circumlocutions back towards his hiding spot until something sharp and bone-white took a chunk out of the solid stone wall. "I smell you…"

It should not have been able to talk. What words did emerge from the cavity were slurred, mangled by the flopping red tongue and the tusk-like, inflexible pedipalps that jutted from the extended mouth. Gluttony's lower jaw was no longer there, at least not in any form my brother recognized. The mouth had extended vertically, splitting the jaw, the throat, the tremendous stomach. And within the center of the maw, between the ribs extended and sharpened to fangs, my brother caught a glimpse of a great black eye before the flashing teeth reached out once more, to swallow him as well as the now ruined mural.

Brother rolled, his pack broken open on the creature's teeth and supplies spilling out behind him as he ran, and he grimly wriggled out of the straps as he clambered to his feet in an effort for more speed.

He heard it panting behind him until the ruins of Xerxes would have been long out of sight, but he didn't dare pause long enough to look back. Brother bragged that even I with all my training - and my own misadventure with Solaris and her mysterious soldier - couldn't have matched him for speed or endurance that day, but even a panicked scholar had to run out of breath eventually.

He collapsed to all fours in the sand, his glasses slipping above his eyebrows as he let his head hang and gasped for air. After glancing back ungracefully but not ineffectively between his legs, slowing his heaving chest enough to listen for other noises and hearing only a far-off whine, my brother paused long enough to draw a quick circle in the sand and hastily cup the welling liquid from his alchemized spring to his mouth before continuing towards home.

He sat me down later, after we had both recovered from our shocks, and made me trace the pattern until I could practically draw it with my eyes shut.

"I know it's not something you _want _to know, but you should at least be able to sense what lies under the sand, Little Brother. It could save your life one day. I just wish there was a faster way to draw it…" I'd rolled my eyes at the pensive, distracted expression that would eventually give rise to the tattoos marking both our forearms. Alchemy was what had earned Brother Solaris's interest. Alchemy was what had taken him into the desert, in range of Gluttony. Alchemy had set him on a path away from God, at least in our parents' eyes. Alchemy did not play a role in the preparations I was making to face Solaris.

Brother could not believe that she was using him. Even if what I saw corroborated with what he'd encountered in the ruins, my brother refused to believe in dead ends with the same passion that I refused to believe those that doubted the existence of God.

We saw enough of both in the next seven years.

I never got the chance to confront Solaris in person. She secluded herself with my brother and made herself scarce whenever I came to visit in the next two weeks - ostensibly I was there to help with research, but more and more often, our conversations ended in arguments, - and after that, she was gone.

An Amestrian soldier had shot down a little girl in cold blood in the middle of a marketplace. It wasn't wise for one of Solaris's kind to stay in Kanda City. People might suspect that she'd been involved.


	9. Third Life: Avenging Angel

A/N: Thanks to Nebula Coyote for the continuous reviews and Cap'nHoozits for the first review as well! If you like Scar-centric stories, check them out. They do shiny ones.

Strong T warning for this chapter, folks. General Armstrong is General Armstrong. I don't control her. Discworld fans, you may insert your own May angels joke here. On the other hand, le reveal! First person who can figure out the real-world history for Scar's namesake earns a ourboros cookie. Yes, I do have an end in sight for this series, but we're not there yet.

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It was not, in fact, that her outfit was all that risqué. The neckline was as high as Colonel Riza Mustang's, and her wrap was fairly loose below her hips. But this was General Armstrong, for whom "underdressed" usually consisted of going without her gloves and greatcoat in my experience, in a two-piece swimsuit. The top went up to a turtleneck, but it was… tight. And sleeveless. And revealed just the slightest hint of a flat, pale line of skin above the high line of the wrap…

She had nice arms, I noted, trying to keep my thoughts away from the zipper in the front and middle of the silky dark blue fabric. Very nicely muscled.

I wasn't nineteen anymore. I could keep my head and act civilized around Sherry, Mei, and even Colonel Mustang whenever they made for a day at the oasis, and certainly the Miles girls and Mei showed more skin. There was no reason to stare just because Olivia Armstrong happened to participate in less official preparations for the joint Northern-Eastern training demonstration this year.

She wasn't glittering; that was just the sand behind her.

I nodded to them as they passed our little schoolhouse, not trusting myself to speak, and Sherry Miles waved back. "It's so hot out that we finally even convinced the great Colonel Mustang to slack off a little. Want to join us?"

I shook my head, though I knew I was sweating through my undershirt. Mei and Sherry's girls would not be my only former and current students taking advantage of the oasis in the midday heat, either. All the more reason not to follow. "Thank you," I managed faintly. Still my eyes were drawn to that snow-pale skin… "Armstrong, did you bring protection?"

"Really, Ishvalan?" The long-haired blonde graced me with a dryly condescending look. "In front of the girls?"

"I meant oil," I dug myself deeper into the pit. The light had dawned on Katarie long before it did on me. "Or lotion. You look like you'll burn."

The She-Bear of Briggs was not one to allow a man any sort of weakness without making him pay dearly for it. "Spare me any religious dogma. The gentleman tends to take care of that sort of thing in my experience, anyway."

Struck wordless even as Mei took pity on me and attempted to herd the girls away, I took off my over-shirt and handed it to the general.

"You catch up when you're ready for some sunshine, Armstrong. We'll be with our men." Sherry had the audacity to shoot us a wink. Mustang managed to appear all at once sympathetic and profoundly amused in her own quiet fashion as she waved goodbye and trailed after her hostess.

I don't rightly remember the next few minutes of conversation. "Sun," "heat," and "pale skin" factored into my halting explanation, but I quickly gave that up under Olivia Armstrong's cool blue gaze that offered no respite from the desert sun. I allowed at least one type of frustration to get the better of me as she, nonplussed, slipped my shirt over her shoulders and turned up the sleeves. She did not bother to close it. "What was that about?" I knew Armstrong did not suffer foolishness gladly, but it was not like her to tease me in that way.

"You, Ishvalan." Calm as you please, the general readjusted my over-shirt until it hung to her liking. "You looked as pole-axed as young Alphonse Elric when his princess would run to greet him in Central Hospital." I crossed my arms and clamped my jaws shut. Denying it would only make things worse, no matter how ridiculous the comparison seemed to me. "So it seems you are a man and not some avenging angel of Ishvala after all." Armstrong's voice seemed to melt when she murmured.

I reminded myself that she could freeze just as suddenly as a Briggs blizzard, even under the direct sun of God's land in the summer. "Whatever might make you think otherwise?"

Olivia Armstrong reached up and gently brushed the corner of my mouth, then inclined her head towards the roughly-rebuilt schoolhouse that my students had vacated for the heat of midday. Wordlessly, I followed her inside, her fingers unneeded but not unappreciated brands against my wrist as we ducked beneath the heavy canvas door.

"You know what today is." Once inside, she'd turned to face me, her hands stroking blindly up my bare arms in the relative darkness. As was often the case when General Armstrong decided to manhandle me, I was not entirely certain where to place my hands.

It was not phrased as a question, but she appeared to expect a response, anyway. "May 18th, 1921." Armstrong snorted indelicately. She was expecting more than the clinical date on the calendar. "Six years since the Promised Day." That phrase would mean little to most of the nation. Bradley's honor had been left intact through Grumman's white lies.

"Six years not promised to any of us. Six years we had to win for ourselves and our nation in the space of a day. People like me were not even promised that much. The generals might have played at immortal soldiers, but I knew them merely to be Father's dupes." Her right hand slid down to my wrist, lifting the arm within the stifling shaft of light from the doorway and resisting my halfhearted efforts to withdraw from her grasp. "Do I strike you as a fool, Ishvalan?" The second-most powerful military officer in Amestris tilted her head closer, her nose inches from the black and white ink within my skin. "A pawn in the game of countries?"

I meant to reach for the curtaining fall of her golden forelock in a purely platonic comforting gesture. "No more than I am." Despite my nobler intentions, my fingertips lingered at the pulse point between her ear and jaw.

She still wouldn't look me in the eye. "He sook alchemists who could perform human transmutation. I leave the details of such things to my brother and his associates, but what you did after the war strikes me as being very close to human transmutation, if not the forbidden act itself."

"Trust me, it wasn't." My brother, my gentle, calm, idealistic, ever-curious brother had merely been a potential candidate, never a ready one. I hadn't realized what that meant until after the eclipse.

"What I did was merely accelerating the process of decomposition. Human transmutation requires forming the body into something unnatural and twisted, granting life to something that shouldn't exist." Originally, I wasn't able to differentiate between State Alchemists who had slaughtered my people and those who had not been involved in the war. After Shou Tucker, I hadn't wanted to.

"Like a man who has already died." She turned my left palm over casually, leaning into my hand on her cheek.

I found myself mirroring her tilting head, stretching my fingers back towards my wrist to brush hers. "You were no alchemist to change what I was. The body is the same, if a little worse for wear; it was my soul that was transformed." I ducked my head closer, bringing what gentleness I could back into my eyes. "We are but instruments of God's will. No one else can control us."

"Nonsense." Blue eyes flashed to meet mine, and Isaac MacDougal himself couldn't have froze them faster. "Perhaps it was by our own wills, but Father could control… people just the same. There are things that even a bear of Briggs can't stand to lose." I'd noticed the quick pause in her voice, the sudden momentary race in her pulse, but pressure in her jaw line and the hardness in her eyes kept me silent on the subject. "There are people that I would kill for, even after there is no chance of saving them, because of the loyalty they have shown me." She placed her other hand atop the hands between us, holding it gently in the beam of light as if in benediction. She sighed and shut her eyes, nodding once to herself before she straightened. "Loyalty is to be encouraged."

"Armstrong…" I withdrew my hand from her cheek, intertwining my fingers with hers. I didn't know what she was planning, but it certainly didn't seem like a normal military ceremony. I didn't want to push her too far into something she wasn't ready for. I was still internally debating just how far I wanted to take this unscheduled lesson. "Olivia…"

She ignored both, or appeared to once she focused her ice-blue gaze upon me once more. "You were an angel of vengeance on the Promised Day, and not just for that Xingese guard. She might be able to trot home after her master and forget her debt with a display of generous thanks and help from her sister-in-law, but I have no master, Ishvalan. I will not allow my younger sisters to shoulder my burdens."

"You owe me nothing," I attempted to protest. "If anything, I owe you for saving my life-"

She cut me off with a finger to my lips. "You stole my kill, Scar. If I was to maintain any credit for taking Bradley down and honor my men… for his sake, I had to make you _my _avenging angel." I very much doubted that Major-General Olivia Mira Armstrong did anything for Fuhrer Bradley's sake.

I kissed her knuckles as chastely as I could manage. "You know I belong to Ishvala first, General Armstrong."

She laughed, a rich, throaty sound which did nothing to cool the temperature. "There are hundreds, thousands of your people in Ishval, yet even here, even with Miles, who's been a dear friend and comrade for years, you are the only one who answers when I call for 'Ishvalan.' I say the word and everyone knows I'm talking about you. I am very aware of your loyalties," Armstrong ended the sentence with my name, but the effect of that minor intimacy was rather overshadowed as she closed the gap between us. "I still think you have room for another."

I considered the blonde, blue-eyed general resting against my chest as objectively as I could under the circumstances. "It depends on to whom - or what - I'm giving the honor, such as it is." She only carried my scent via the unfastened shirt slipped over her bare shoulders. Perhaps she'd sweated out in the sand, as well, perhaps Sherry had gotten us both hooked on the same terrible muddy coffee, perhaps her late-morning preparations with the girls had added something a bit more southeastern to her scent, but I had not touched her long enough - or … thoroughly enough - to enfold her with mine. I should not expect to smell of her just because our noses were touching and our mouths mere centimeters apart.

"I would claim you for Briggs, but I know you won't come. Not for as long as they'd need you. I don't want to claim you for the army or State Alchemists; that would give Mustang and Grumman too much of an excuse to try to steal you away from me." Slipping slowly out of my intertwined fingers, Armstrong wrapped her arms about my shoulders, nuzzling until our foreheads made contact.

"Frankly, I'd love to see them try." She did not protest when I cradled her waist, hands snaking beneath the over-shirt, just along the line of bare torso.

"The only option I have left is to claim you for myself." I could not describe the sensation that jolted through me as she did so. All my nerves were afire, but I wanted more. It had been so long… "You know that I won't leave Briggs. Not permanently. I trust my men and I find Ishval most promising, but I belong there as surely as you belong here. There are always new recruits." Olivia glanced past me around the schoolroom.

Somehow, we'd found ourselves pressed together against the far wall. I backed off enough to make sure she - and I, for that matter - had room to breathe, but I didn't release her and she kept her arms around my neck. I sunk my head to her shoulder, relishing in our mixed scent as she tangled her fingers in my hair. "I know. I can't abandon everything I've worked for here, and cannot expect you to do that for me. We might go between the two..." The momentary fantasy did not seem so far out of reach, not after everything else we'd accomplished. It took more strength of will than I possessed to lift my head without tasting her throat beneath my collar for what could be the last time as easily as it was the first, but I had to meet her eyes. "But Armstrong, I am a priest of Ishvala. I've already brought enough dishonor on the profession."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Just because I'm Amestrian, Scar?"

I shook my head, trying to resist the temptation to lower my lips back to hers. "Because we're not married."

"So you're telling me…" Her fingers traced restless questions against the nape of my neck and shoulder-blades.

I nodded. "A wanted criminal doesn't get much time for that sort of thing. A young priest even less."

Armstrong "hmmed" thoughtfully. "That's six years even so."

"There's been you." Her skin was firm, warm, moist with sweat beneath my fingers. "You have ways of keeping a man's mind off of other women, general. Sometimes frightening, often painful, and yet horribly distracting ways."

"Flatterer." Her tone of voice was dissmissive, but she ducked her eyes away.

I couldn't resist tightening my hold on her, pressing my lips into those golden-blonde locks. "If you don't want to, we don't have to, but if you would like to…" I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence. "I want you."

I gasped when her hips brushed mine. "I suppose you do," she murmured against my jugular, loosening a hand from my shoulders.

She snaked it down between our chests, and then I heard the unmistakable loosening of a zipper. "It's only fair, after all, though, that if you show me yours, I show you mine."

I whimpered slightly at that. "Olivia…" _Please say yes, _I prayed, though I had not yet managed to ask a proper question in order to get a proper answer. "Don't push me further than you want to go."

"The question is, can you go as far as I'll push?" She tugged one of my hands away from her waist, placing it flat between her clavicles. I lifted my head at the feel of bare skin. My shirt still hung loosely from her shoulders. Her top was not completely undone, although the curves of her breasts were plainly outlined by the edges of dark blue fabric. Beneath my hand, I caught lines of darker pigment against the pale skin. With her encouraging caresses and a few noises that I had never suspected the general capable of making, I lifted my palm and traced my fingers over the pattern.

The crown, especially, was quite well done; I could pick out the individual icicles and snowflakes that graced the rampant white bear's head. There was no color to it other than the black outlines, but against her pale skin, there needn't be for the great northern bear queen standing on the edge of a glacial cliff, a sword brandished in her lower paw.

The sword, however, didn't seem to fit with the rest of Olivia Armstrong's tattoo. Instead of her ancestral rapier, her namesake she-bear held a cutlass against threats unknown. Kissing it lightly, I mentioned as much to Olivia.

"The artist thought himself something of a comedian," she offered as dry half-explanation. "Please don't stop."

Whether it was the breathless hitch in her voice or the uncharacteristic pleading, I was quite ready to lift her in my arms and comply when she commanded me to buck, but she flinched and opened her eyes with a gasp as soon as the syllable left her mouth, fingers grasping desperately against the deep gouges in my biceps.

"Oh, fucking hell. Ishvalan, I'm sorry. I thought that after six years, I'd be ready." She pushed away, zipping back up and swearing apologies under her breath. She moved to untangle my shirt from her arms, but I caught it to her shoulder.

"Please, keep it." I released her before I was tempted to do otherwise and straightened my own rumpled undershirt. "And don't worry about… this. We almost went further than either of us need to, and my red-eyed brother would kill me if I'd hurt his best friend and commanding officer." I ran a hand through my hair, half-reluctantly smoothing away the rivulets her fingers had left behind. I could replace the shirt before my students returned, and blame the clothing change on the heat.

Armstrong nodded her thanks, swallowing back whatever she had been about to say. "You are very good to your friends, Ishvalan."

"General Olivia Armstrong, unless you wish me to start calling you 'Ammy,' please, call me Zosimos." I bowed back to her. "At least while we are among friends."

A little of the mischief came back into her smile. "It is your rightful name, after all."


	10. First Life: Flawed Logic

A/N: I don't own them. I maded you an ourboros cookie, Cap'nHoozits, but it ated itself. The street rhymer wasn't the intentional source for the Sexyhobo as the gnostic alchemist was, but it's funny how these things work out, eh? Thanks to Nebula Coyote and L. Casablanca for your reviews as well! Only three chapters left, and two of those are half-written, so far. (Give or take an omake or two... The problem with first-person from Scar is that it's hard to get into Lust's or SexyHoBro's - ahem - head. I swear that's not the official in-story name for him, but when it fits, it fits.)

* * *

I stopped at the door to Brother's apartment, the frantic rustle of paper halting me in my tracks. Was he at last getting rid of all those books that had brought us nothing but worry and misery? It was too much to hope for.

The cloth overhang flopped limply against the back of my head. "No." It was too much to be true.

"Ah, good, you're here. Come over and help me look for this book," Brother's voice came from amidst the unchanged mess, an absent smile in his tone, if not in his eyes.

"No. You can't be continuing with this," I said, though by now I didn't expect much of a response. "Have we not seen trouble enough from this blasphemy towards God?" Brother leveled me with a wry, weary patience in his gaze, as if wondering when I'd finish my protests and start getting to work. "I won't let you drag me around like a child anymore; you should know better than to keep doing this after... her." I could not bring myself to say Solaris's name.

My elder brother simply shrugged and went back to digging through texts. "If that is the way you feel, I cannot hold you back, priest of Ishvala." I stepped towards him despite my better instincts; his dismissal was entirely too flippant. Whether I meant to try to convince him through quiet words and serious touch or simply by knocking some respect into him, I hadn't quite decided, but I was seriously leaning toward the latter. I pushed up my sleeves as I walked.

"But understand, Little Brother, this is not about Solaris. I hoped... I _still_ hope that it can help her, too, but I saw more than just a monster out there in the ruins." The quiet gravity of his voice made me pause, and I dropped my eyes to the mess on his desk. In the center, in something shakier than Brother's usual painstakingly neat hand, there was a rough sketch of a pentagon within a circle drawn on a spare leaf of paper, with incomprehensible notes in the margins. He pushed it away beneath another stack of scrolls before I could attempt to decode it. "I still may not know how God struck down Xerxes, but I think I begin to understand why. Alchemy can still be used for good. Maybe even that can have its proper uses, though I wouldn't like to think of them." Second-guessing himself, Brother removed the scrolls and replaced them with something heavier, as if afraid the unfinished circle would escape from him in what fitful, weak evening breeze made it past the door. "But we need to learn from this, prevent this, reverse it if we can." Brother sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose before repositioning his glasses. "There should never be another Xerxes, especially not in Ishval."

"It is easy to prevent if people would learn not to try to adulterate what God has given them," I reminded him, no small amount of accusation in my words as I shoved books and paper aside. Let him keep his secrets; I wanted no part of his alchemy to begin with, or so I told myself.

"Adulterate?" he repeated, an incredulous laugh bouncing frantically beneath the syllables. "Little Brother, listen to yourself. There has been trouble from those who would try to use alchemy for ill, but would you call an automail mechanic blasphemous because another built weapons instead of a leg for the lame to walk upon? Would you blame all architects if one made a house that collapsed in a windstorm? Is a farmer's scythe an instrument of evil merely because it has the potential to hurt someone if it is misused? God will set us trials and the world will tempt us to sin, because this is how we are made, but Ishvala will also give us the tools of mind, body, and soul to overcome them, for it is in our nature to try to follow His will."

Perhaps it was merely years of arguing theology with Mother and me, but my elder brother had always managed to sound so heartfelt in his piety, so confident in his moral position, so... so damned smug. "There is a line between trying to follow God and trying to become God. I suggest you learn it, Jabir."

"I'm not trying to become God." Brother used the cleared space to sort through another armful of books. "Creating humans, flawed as we are, is so difficult that I fail to see why anyone would go through the trouble to try to make something supposedly better," he muttered under his breath, his eyes turning back to the sequestered sheet of paper half-crumpled at the bottom of the mess. "Even so..."

I was too disgusted to formulate a proper reply, so I turned away. "'Flawed' doesn't begin to describe you."

"Don't suppose it does," he replied absently, flipping through an old Xingese alkahestry text. "Don't suppose it begins to describe a lot of things."

I hit him, but he barely reacted beyond stanching his bloodied lip before it could stain his book, already caught up in another theory that damned him in my eyes even as it led to our salvation. I went out to the well to wash my brother's blood from my right hand.


	11. Third Life: Flying the Coup

A/N: Whee, longest chapter evar on my Little Bro's B-day! For serious, this even trumps anything from my original LotR Suefic even without rambling author's notes. Serious fic? What is this serious fic you speak of? Thanks to Nebula Coyote and Cap'nHoozits, this has been at least partially written and edited under influence of bagpipes. There's a reason my ancestors left Ireland. ;P I'm way too cruel to own the awesomness that is Izumi Curtis, much less any of the others. As to Zosimos and Jabir, there are reasons for those names, same as Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastis - er, Van Hohenheim.

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I leaped behind a pile of upthrust rubble, feeling the heat of the flames and the roar of the military and my fellow Ishvalans wash over me. Giving myself barely enough time to inhale something cooler than the superheated oxygen, I turned and launched myself at my attacker, turning his glove to dust beneath my right palm as we hit the ground and rolled. He kicked wildly, throwing his elbows and snapping his still intact right glove to bring his fire as close as he dared, but I kept myself moving, even when the dog of the military bared his teeth and snapped those at me as well. I knew a few underhanded tricks of my own, and managed to contain his left hand at least until I could grasp the right. I had it within my grasp when he slipped loose from my hold to slam his bare fist in my face and pull himself to his feet. Not wishing to give him time to conjure up another glove, I jumped toward him while half-blinded from the impact of his fist and the blood trickling in my eyes, trusting to my nose to warn me if the Flame Alchemist attempted to twist the oxygen and hydrogen in the air before I could close the distance. The sand was packed hard enough to bruise us when we fell, but I could feel it slip beneath my feet, nearly hear the cornered beast that railed in Mustang's chest over the mingled raw chorus of approval from my people and disappointment from his as I grasped his ungloved hand once more, bowling him over as our skulls rattled in impact.

The second blow to my head left me dizzy, but gave me a few moments to sort the cacophony of voices into at least a few that I recognized.

"You got him, chief!"

"Give him hell, preacher!"

"You call that fighting? I could take you both with one hand tied behind my back and no alchemy!" Not that the last catcaller had much choice, but further insults were forestalled as another familiar voice called to him for help.

"Brother, I think our wives are corrupting the children."

"Sounds to me more like Elysia and the Miles girls are corrupting _them_."

Indeed, despite the newly alchemized Xingese-style dragons that twined around the edges of the bleachers much like the four that wound their way up my forearms, the chants of "Uncle Scar" and "Uncle Roy" commingled in the air until the last syllable was an indecipherable muddle, and none shouted more enthusiastically than Edward Elric's eldest from his position on Elysia Hughes's shoulders as she bounded from one end of the bleachers to the other. Theo's sister remained in their mother's lap, both of them lending their voices in support of Roy Mustang. Meanwhile, Katarie had been granted the honor of holding Mei and Alphonse's baby girl, teaching her to root along with the Miles sisters. Mustang's own wife sat among their men, silencing Havoc as quickly as one of my own student's mother had hushed him for the teenager's unseemly outburst. Colonel Riza Mustang had gotten their infant son to sleep and no raucous support for his father was going to disturb Hughie's nap now.

I swiped at my face with my free hand and took a deep breath, changing my grip on Mustang's fingers. The rabid beast still glinted in the back of his charcoal eyes, but the fight was over now. I hauled him to his feet. "Nice control," he murmured, the first words out of his mouth since the beginning of this demonstration. The brigadier sounded as if he were still attempting to wrestle the savage animal lurking beneath his suave exterior back under his command.

"Wish I could say the same," I replied, brushing the smoldering mud of sand, ash, and blood from my eyebrows. The Ishval Massacre had been a decade ago, but the mindless killers it had created still lived just beneath our skins, waiting for us to loose them with a clap, snap, and outthrust of our hands.

The Fuhrer rose from his seat, even dropping his fan for a standing ovation. "I'm glad to see that the Northern-Eastern joint training has lost none of its grand tradition without me at the helm, though I should expect nothing less from Ms. Armstrong and young Mustang, eh?" Armstrong had remained in her seat, not cheering our stalemate, but she inclined her head as politely as Mustang did to his wife's grandfather. "Two of Ishval's most well-known heroes... my, that takes me back. I'm surprised that the two of you trust each other enough to give such an amazing demonstration right here in the Debir district, but then you have worked together long enough, haven't you?" Grumman gave a light laugh as he took up his fan, and Mustang and I took a moment to consider each other. For my part, I wouldn't call it trust, at least not in Mustang, but as long as the children were within view and not involved in the fight, I could hold myself back, hold onto the uncle, the priest, the man I was supposed to be for them. "I know it's poor form to keep you when you're quite ready to go freshen up and return to your families, but allow an old man his repetitive questions: are you quite sure we can't tempt you into an official title, Scar? I always sleep better knowing alchemy like that is being used for the good of the state, these days."

I bowed deeply, pretending I didn't see the flashing looks Mustang, Marcoh, and both Armstrongs in attendance shot me. "I have other duties that must come first, but with your leave, I would like to speak with you on the subject of the State Alchemist program later." Him, Mustang, both the Armstrongs, Marcoh, the Elrics, and one last expert alchemist that I wasn't sure would turn up anywhere near a military training exercise. If anything, she hated the dogs of the state even more than I did.

When she finally did turn up, it was late in the evening, and Alphonse and Mei had to leave our makeshift meeting hall to wheedle her into joining us. Edward cowered behind his wife, though both their children overcame the insidious grip of sleepiness at the sound of "Auntie Izumi." We could hear through two thick sets of adobe walls as Elysia Hughes tried to calm her charges of the night before they awoke their baby cousin.

"We've got nothing to say to the Fuhrer, so there's no need for us to go in," the latecomer pronounced.

"I'm sure Scar-san would never force you into something you don't want to do. He's got as much reason to want to avoid the State Alchemists as anyone else." She just snorted at the younger female alchemist's statement, but Alex Armstrong sent me a look that mixed equal parts curiosity and concern for sins done on both sides.

His elder sister and I might get along well - I still wouldn't bring up that moment in the heat of early summer, and she wouldn't acknowledge its existence, either, but besides that forbidden topic beyond friendship, I still considered us about as close as a she-bear of Briggs with an eye for martial domination and a priest of Ishvala with anti-military sympathies could get - but Major Armstrong and I had not interacted much after the Promised Day. He was quick with his forgiveness and effusive with kindness for his friends, but I was not ready for Alex Armstrong's open-armed acceptance.

The Miles family, Mei, and Marcoh were about as close as I was able to take in that regard, and they had at least been given a reason. From the rest of Amestris, I had come to expect no better than Edward Elric's blustering, prickly backhands at friendliness, Olivia Armstrong's calculated measures of comfort and command, Yoki's sometimes pompous and usually rather sulky attempts to call in favors, or Alphonse's quiet stillness - he still treated me much as if I were a stray tomcat whose moods he hadn't quite divined. None of these were any more than I deserved. The Mustangs had offered their thanks on the Promised Day, and if I hadn't quite accepted it, it was not because of the reasons Riza Hawkeye had mentioned. I understood the path they walked down all too clearly, for our roads met in the deepest pits of Hell. If they could not shake off the last shadows from that dark place, even after we stood in the renewed Ishvalan sun, perhaps they understood why I couldn't, either.

Major Armstrong had been to that same battlefield that had corrupted the Mustangs, Marcoh, and me, but he'd turned away from that path. He might think it a weakness, but his breakdown in Ishval was part of the reason I was glad to have him as one of the two current State Alchemists here to hear this theory out.

Another part of my reason was the tall, broad-built, dark-haired man who peered suspiciously into sparsely-furnished room as the younger Elric couple argued with his wife. I'd expected Sig Curtis to come along, as much as I'd expected Winry Elric and Riza Mustang. Fortunately, the black-bearded face lit up at the sight of Strongarm as quickly as the bald alchemist's sparkled with delight at his appearance. Brigadier Mustang braced himself to insure that his wife, son, and in-law were firmly out of the way of their boisterous greeting, but the colonel just shook her head in faint amusement as the two men slapped one another's backs and rumbled enthusiastic greetings that I associated more with Mei. Winry accepted her own personal hello from the mountain known as Curtis with slightly more dignity than Alex or her husband, though both she and Edward were lifted off the ground during their reintroduction. Considering that the elder Elric was about my height these days, I couldn't blame General Armstrong for remaining firmly in her seat as she offered her hand to Sig Curtis and letting her eyes drift between her sword, her brother and his friend, and me throughout the introductions. She needed no words to warn me that I treaded upon thin ice with her patience right now. The Armstrong siblings and Curtis couple had a genuine respect for one another, but the general disliked the antics that Sig and Alex were prone to, especially around one another.

I let out my breath as Izumi Curtis, self-proclaimed "Housewife" and most dangerous human I'd ever met, including Olivia Armstrong, Roy Mustang, Solaris, and her own protégés, walked in through the door, Mei and Alphonse riding in her wake. While Mrs. Curtis was not a particularly large woman, only about Colonel Mustang's height and whip-thin, her presence was as imposing as her husband's. Her first greeting was a polite nod for the Fuhrer, along with the generals, though there was something warmer in her gaze for Mustang and Armstrong - for all her disgust with State Alchemists in general, she liked Brigadier Mustang and Major Armstrong in person well enough, if not their choices, and was one of very few people who could safely admire Olivia Armstrong's work without also fearing her for it. Possibly she was the only person. Even Fuhrer Grumman was careful to keep tabs on the elder of his two potential heirs and her connections via a system of intermediaries. Even... even after kissing her, I still felt more like I had dared to leap off a cliff and had been lucky enough to survive the plunge into the icy water below than any less in awe of her. I wondered if Sig Curtis felt the same way about his wife. Certainly the two women seemed to ease one another's moods, at least.

"Well, it took you long enough to see sense, Ed." Izumi turned upon her elder former apprentice, her smile widening into something every bit as potentially vicious as Major-General Olivia Armstrong at her most playful.

"Good to see you, too, Izumi..." Edward said diffidently and stepped back behind Winry, and I couldn't say I blamed him.

Curtis pointed a thumb in Roy Mustang's direction. "So when are you going to convince these other two to slip their collars? No offense to Olivia and Riza, and I'm sure we've got less to worry about with Grumman than Bradley, but you know I prefer to see alchemists who can think for themselves instead of acting as puppets for the state."

"None taken, for my part," General Armstrong said, blue eyes coming to linger on me of all people. "Sometimes it's quite useful to have a man outside the usual system. Certainly Major Elric was Mustang's wildcard for long enough."

"Both of the Elric brothers certainly were helpful to us," Colonel Mustang agreed charitably. "But sometimes it's necessary to change a system from within, or otherwise one will never know how to fix it." She stroked her sleeping child's dark hair, leaning into the hand the Brigadier put to her shoulder.

"Sometimes, things can't be fixed." Curtis crossed her arms, and her husband came to stand behind her, his face set in shadow. "Sometimes it's best to walk away and start over with what you've got left."

"Can't know until you try," the Flame Alchemist offered gamely, though there was still a touch of bitter self-effacement in his words.

Grumman shook his head with a light laugh. "Forgive me, Mrs. Curtis, but you quite remind me of my son-in-law, especially arguing with these two. Berthold did not take it well when his apprentice ran off to join the military, and wasn't shy about voicing his displeasure. He contacted me for the first time in years just to accuse me of corrupting his most promising student."

"I'm sure Roy wouldn't know anything about that," the dreadlocked woman said dryly, and Brigadier Mustang's grip on his wife's shoulder whitened. To my right, Marcoh attempted to disguise his laughter with a cough as the other male alchemists unconsciously took shelter behind wives or sisters - even I was slinking in at General Armstrong's flank before Izumi Curtis turned her attention to me.

"Oh, he came up with the idea to join the military quite on his own, but I certainly wasn't going to waste the opportunity when a good man and talented young alchemist came along. Berthold Hawkeye and I disagreed on any number of topics, but I can't deny that the man had very good taste. He did marry my daughter, after all." The Fuhrer looked indulgently over his grandchildren and great-grandson, and Mrs. Curtis curled her fingers about empty air, faintly brushing fingertips against bare arms. "I'm just glad that you didn't suffer the same fit of apoplexy my son-in-law did when your prodigal apprentices finally visited home."

"I think Sensei came close," Alphonse murmured deadpan to his brother. Edward just shook his head.

Marcoh gently cleared his throat into the tension-filled silence that followed, motioning to me to get things started before we had to get things settled. The parallel between Curtis and Hawkeye and the Elric brothers and Mustang was as good an opening gambit as any I was likely to get. I took a breath and stepped away from the Armstrongs, towards the center of the ring for the second time today. This time, it was only a ring of chairs and throw rugs and the only attack and defense I needed were words, but it was cold comfort when I'd always made my point better through actions and the ones I faced were the supreme commanders of the country in their positions as such and the Housewife herself, no less daunting a name among alchemists for her unofficial status. "The State Alchemy program has corrupted otherwise admirable people and forced them to unspeakable acts," I spoke neutrally, my eyes never maintaining contact for too long with any one individual, though I forced myself to meet blue, gray, brown, and golden gazes without flinching. "But one man left to his own devices can be just as deadly."

I'd expected reproach, but the closest I heard was the Elric brothers' breathless whispers of "Nina" - first from Alphonse; his elder brother half a breath behind him. Alphonse had told me of that poor lost soul, of what she had been before she put her furry misshapen head trustingly into my hand. I prayed that God had found her a form more fitting when I sent her to Him. Winry Rockbell-Elric, of course, required no words. She had been as quick to look away as I had. Sometimes, I still think Brother was wrong. Alchemy cursed us all.

"It is best, perhaps, when an alchemist has seen what he might become: the state dog, the lost prophet, the mad beast, the unsuspecting monster... Pawn or rebel, it is an alchemist's duty to learn all he can about the world's mysteries, is it not?" As if chiding me for my gloom, I felt an echo of Brother in my words.

"Alchemist, be thou for the people," Strongarm rumbled approvingly. While the Armstrong siblings might be as godless as the rest of the native Amestrians, they did hold fast to their individual philosophies.

"No one person should be in command of that power. Not without someone to watch them, guide them, and stop them if need be." I glanced toward Grumman, trying to see if I was overstepping the limits to his kindly veneer of indulgence. He smiled gently behind his fan, willing to hear me out as far as I'd go. The man was willing to give me plenty of leash, at least enough to hang myself. At his side, the Mustangs leaned into each other, the instinctive defense of a hunting couple. They were not, however, looking as if they disagreed with me. To the Fuhrer's right, General Armstrong sat with her legs crossed primly, arms folded across her knee as she leaned back with a neutral, watchful quirk of her brow, her brother a monolith behind her. "It is common for young alchemists to apprentice under a master, but few are humble enough stay in touch with their teachers and fellow learners once they have passed their State exams."

"Or brave enough," Edward mumbled under his breath.

"What was that, Ed?" Izumi Curtis cracked her knuckles against the inside of her elbow.

"Not repeating it, Sensei." The young man did have a certain almost suicidal streak of outspoken stubbornness. Not unlike some of the rest of us gathered tonight.

"It is better when we can remember that we are all still learning, when there is contact between the old masters and those at the peak of their skill, as the state measures such things." Marcoh had been briefed on my mission for this demonstration and was quite happy to assist, though he insisted that he was too old to be championing the cause himself. I could stand in the center of the ring. His old bones, weathered before their time, were better suited to claiming a wicker-and-camelhair chair with a high back and supporting me from the sidelines.

"This is why, instead of serving the state military directly, I would prefer to act as a civilian watchdog, if you will," I told Grumman. "To assure that the future of alchemy is a little less… scarring for all involved."

"So the military watches your kind, you watch the military, and those who do not wish to be seen slip through the cracks," General Armstrong summarized cynically, examining her nails for sand.

"I am not saying that we won't work with the state," I countered. "No more than Eastern and Northern commands would refuse to cooperate with one another." Brigadier Mustang twitched a smirk upwards at that.

"Of course, there are times when paranoia is the only perfectly logical response," he allowed sotto voice. "But who would lead the organization? How can we keep it out from the thumb of military control and yet insure that it is neither corrupted nor fades away?" After our bout earlier in the day, it seemed only natural for Mustang to follow me into the pit, acknowledging and then ignoring his wife's warning look as he swaggered around her.

The colonel appealed silently to her grandfather and the third member of the ruling triad, and Armstrong switched her legs over with a momentarily exaggerated sweeping motion, brushing more or less accidentally against my calf. I withdrew back between her and Marcoh as Riza Mustang nodded in thanks and pretended not to notice any further silent exchange between the two military blondes. I didn't quite understand the quick plucking motion Olivia Armstrong made with one hand before propping her chin against her thumb and wasn't sure I wanted to.

"It'll have to be grassroots." As I backed off, Fullmetal was quick to leap in against his former commanding officer, if only with words. "We'll make sure that the connections get started - Al and I know a few people," Edward spoke with deadpan understatement. If they hadn't met every alchemist between Creta and Xing, the Elric brothers had certainly gotten their names out there to be known by them. "As to leadership… I've got five hundred twenty cens that says we're smart enough to pick our own leaders. Maybe not for life, maybe not quickly, but we'll work it out as we go along." I could have sworn that Roy Mustang offered him a genuine, spontaneous smile at that, though the Brigadier was quick to replace it with his usual knowing half-smirk.

"I've seen what happens 'as you go along,' Ed." Izumi raised an eyebrow, though she appeared to be mulling the concept over. "We'll have to lay some groundwork, make sure it's something we can get public support on, but I like the idea of something organized to keep an eye on the government." She nodded briefly towards me, then the Fuhrer.

"Never a bad thing for the public to take up their civic duties." Fuhrer Grumman kept his cards close. It was difficult to say for certain just what laid behind that twinkle-eyed smile: approval for potentially getting Izumi Curtis within reach of the state as well as me, plans for using these connections to manipulate who we left in charge of the non-militarized alchemists, or simple enjoyment of the chaos. Whatever the Fuhrer's thoughts, I found myself agreeing with my red-eyed brother: just because Grumman was our ally didn't mean we should trust the wily old man as far as we could throw him.

"Even better when we can do them civilly." Marcoh didn't meet my eyes, but it would have been hard for the others to notice if he had beneath those craggy, lopsided eyebrows.

"Who, me? Izumi? _Scar_? _Civil_ alchemists?" Edward laughed. "Who'd have ever thought?"

"Not me," Winry offered lightly, though she reached to ruffle her husband's long ponytail fondly. I had not seen the elder Elric brother wearing his customary braid nearly so often since their father's death.

"But that is a great name for the duty and vision of this goal!" I turned halfway and raised my hands defensively despite myself. I should have expected an outburst from Alex Armstrong long before this, yet I couldn't have been caught more off-guard if his sister's chair had begun to stride out past me. "Civil Alchemists!" His beefy hands swept out to present first me and Marcoh, then Izumi Curtis and the Elrics. I could not see his mouth beneath the mustache, but he appeared to be gleaming. "Alchemists of the people, for the people!" Perhaps the Ishval Massacre had affected him, as well, if in a different manner than me and the Mustangs or Doctor Tim Marcoh. Then again, to hear General Armstrong tell it, her brother had always been like this. She had buried her face in her palm, surreptitiously scooting her chair away from me as Alex burst forth between us. "The Armstrongs shall be happy to support such a noble idea!"

"Provided that you can make it work," the head of the clan interrupted any further showboating in the desert night.

"We'll see what we can do," Izumi Curtis bowed. The silent giant behind her gripped his friend's iron mitt in oversized paw as the couple started their farewells for the evening. "Nice seeing you again, Doctor Marcoh, Scar," the slender woman offered us each a handshake strong enough to leave prints upon the back of my hand. "We'll talk more later." General Armstrong rose as Mrs. Curtis turned to her, and the Housewife clapped her friend genially on the shoulder, keeping an elbow cocked in my direction. "Keep this one close, Olivia. He's a little reedy, but he's got a decent head on his shoulders. You could do worse." Only a woman married to Sig Curtis would describe a six foot four, two-hundred and twenty-five pound muscular man as "a little reedy." Only her or Alex Armstrong's sister.

Ice-blue eyes glanced playfully in my direction. "I suppose I could do that," Olivia Armstrong allowed.

She cornered me as the meeting broke up, after the Furher declared it long past his and his great-grandson's bedtime and chivvied the Mustangs to their quarters along with him. The Elrics and Marcoh, too, had left to sleep or check on children - Edward grumbled that Izumi would likely have his three-year-old attempting a transmutation circle on his wife's favorite wrench if he left his former master alone with Theo and Sarissa for five minutes - but the night was hardly silent yet. A motley crew of Eastern dogs, Briggs bears, and curious natives had gathered around a pungent bonfire, the Briggs soldiers teasing the more centrally-raised Eastern forces for crowding so close to the blaze against the chill of the desert night - likely in return for the jibes sent their way for sweating so much during the day. A shanty-town of soldiers' tents sprawled between the buildings, reminding me of the Ishval I had first returned home to.

At least now the wall General Armstrong pushed me back against was solid, part of a completed, perfectly inhabitable if not particularly luxuriously appointed homestead. "Alex is behind me, isn't he?" I nodded. "Looking this way?" Still mute, I shook my head. "Then feel free to make some noise, but if you value your ribs, don't try to get past me." For the second time in as many months, Olivia Mira Armstrong closed the distance between our lips, her arms wrapped about my shoulders, her voice a moan that certainly grabbed my attention. My thoughts mired in an incoherent prayer of confession, thanks, and pleas for clemency for my coming actions, I allowed my arms to go on autopilot. One ended up tangled in long, silky, unbound blonde hair, and the left rested on something soft, yet firm beneath the fabric.

I heard Alex Armstrong clear his throat, but Olivia made sure I was quite thoroughly breathless before she turned, her arms still wrapped around me. I needed at least my right arm resting against the wall. I wasn't sure my legs would hold me. "Oh, Alex, I didn't see you back there, Little Brother." Her voice seemed to have lightened two octaves, and her grin could dim the firelight in comparison. "You know my Ishvalan, Scar, of course. Scar, darling, you remember my brother, the State Alchemist Strongarm. He's adapted so well, coming out here for the Northern-Eastern demonstration when he's located by nature to Central. It's not his first time in Ishval, though, after all." She leaned her head against my chest, blue eyes large and disarmingly innocent in "collusion." "We don't like to speak of that though, do we?"

"Big Sister? Olivia?" The major looked as flabbergasted as I felt. She nodded, a tickle of warmth against my heart. "General?"

Another nod, though she was fighting back a hint of "you're an idiot, aren't you?" condescension to her million-watt smile.

"N-no, let's not speak of that. I was - I'm going to go find Colonel Mustang now." With that, Alex Armstrong fled for perhaps the second time in his life. Whether he meant Riza Mustang or used the Flame Alchemist's old rank in his panic we would never know.

"Not bad." Olivia's expression dropped back to her usual quietly amused smirk. She relaxed her hold and adjusted the loose collar of my shirt. "Even got him to call me General without prompting."

"Warn me before you do that," I protested weakly, too late to make much difference. Still not sure I could trust my feet, I slid my left hand up to a slightly more appropriate position. While escaping through the wall behind me sounded good in theory, I would not be going very far if I merely stumbled backwards into a heap of rubble on rubbery limbs.

"What, this?" The kiss was shorter, more chaste, at least to an outside observer, but it certainly didn't strengthen my legs.

"That smile. I think you could have been holding a kitten and that smile would have still scared your brother off." Though for my sake, I was glad she'd been holding me. Alphonse would have accused me of cat-torture-by-proxy if I'd left some defenseless feline - say, one of the tigers that stalked the bamboo jungles of south Xing - in Olivia's arms. The kisses were merely a nice surprise survival bonus.

"Hmm, it might be worth testing, but I hate to do it too often," Olivia mused, running fingers across her swollen lips. "It's hell on the facial muscles."

"I imagine so." When we were children, Brother used to tease me that I scowled so much that my face would stick that way. It could be worse. It wasn't a scowl upon my mouth as my right hand followed after Olivia's, but neither was it that death-rictus of a grin.

She turned her eyes away quickly, her hands on my chest. "Either way, you owe me twenty, Miles," Armstrong called to one of the men waiting by the fire.

"You would know your own brother better than I would," the red-eyed major admitted his defeat with even-tempered dignity. "It's coming out of my fifty from Falman."

"The bet is null and void if you bribe one of the subjects," the thin, silver-haired lieutenant seated next to him complained. "That's why Edward forfeited his winnings on the Mustangs."

Miles just held out his hand. "Different bet. I just claimed General Armstrong couldn't send her brother screaming in terror." He paused, cocking an eyebrow at me. "He wasn't exactly _screaming_, was he?"

"Close enough," Falman grumbled, sorting out thirty in bills for him and twenty for Armstrong.

"Falman? What were you betting that you could compare this to the Mustangs?" she asked, almost shy as she stepped out of my embrace.

The eldest member of Mustang's brain trust glanced between us with a nervousness not unlike Major Armstrong's. "Heisenberg Principle, sir. I'd tell you more, but then I'd be affecting the experiment," Vato Falman explained in a miserable rush, placing the money in her hand and bowing out as quickly as possible.

"No," Olivia said slowly, watching me from the edges of her vision. "I'd say it's you, Ishvalan." Miles just offered us a grin as he pocketed his share.


	12. First Life: Last Place of Safety

A/N: I own nothing. I've got the last few chapters prewritten now; we'll be rounding out at a neat fifteen in total. Thanks to Cap'nHoozits and Nebula Coyote for the reviews! (And happy belated B-day to your husband, Cap'n!) The previous chapter takes place about six years after the Promised Day; this one about 1906ish, assuming the Promised Day was in 1915 on the Amestrian timeline. I don't have an exact age for Mei, but I assume the bean girl's a little older than she looks. (You launch a "Druid queen" crackbunny at me right before NaNoWriMo and you've got no idea where the bagpipe-influenced crack comes from, eh, Nebula Coyote?) ;)

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Brother had told me to pack light, so I hadn't understood why he'd gotten the heavy fabric. Not until we'd come so far north that not only had the air moistened; it had frozen the breath from our lungs into telltale overhanging clouds that I feared would point out our exact location to the military, not cloak us like their larger brethren. I clamped my jaws shut and pulled my coat tighter against my shoulders. It was made to keep the sun off my back and arms, not to keep the chill wind from my skin. My teeth chattered despite my best intentions.

"It's only going to get colder, Little Brother," my elder sibling warned me, throwing the thick un-dyed blanket over my back. He'd removed his glasses, sticking them in a breast pocket and squinting against the wind.

"This must be safer. No sane man would come this far north," I observed through my shivers. The wool was rough under my fingers, but at least it held in heat.

Brother shook his head, though he'd pulled a gray-brown blanket around himself as well. "We're not even to the real north-country yet, and there's not a tighter border guard than between Briggs and Drachma."

I stared at him in disbelief. We'd rattled the iron-fenced gates to Aergo like any other peaceful protesters, - Brother and I were not afraid to fight for our country if we had to, but Mother was fragile with her temperament and Father was getting too old for these shocks - and our "allies" had shut us out even before the Ammys started patrolling them. They were doing worse than patrols in the northern providences... "Why are we going there, then?"

"It's a long story, Little Brother," he sighed. "There's a lot of theorizing and guesswork and trust in God involved, but I hope that if we can get to the border on the Drachmian side, I can stop this before it gets worse."

"The so-called alchemical buffer again," I summarized. I straightened beneath the blanket, refusing to let the chill keep me from saying what I needed to make him understand. "It doesn't feel right because it's a perversion of the natural order. I know it's useless to argue with you, but how do you think sinning is supposed to feel?"

Brother reached for his breast pocket, but it was a rolled and slightly crumpled paper that he put his hand to, not his glasses. Despite telling me to pack light, Brother had gathered more than a few "irreplaceable" volumes for his bag. I would be returning to Ishval for our parents once we'd scouted out this escape route. I feared that he'd be returning for more of his alchemy books. "Sometimes it feels like the only choice."

I put a hand to his back, rustling into his blanket as well as my own. "May God forgive you for your hopelessness, Jabir. And may He forgive me, for going along with you."

Looking back on it, I can hardly believe we managed to come as far as we had. Whenever I thought myself inured to the icy weather, fingers, face, and feet at last numb to any further abuse, we managed to find a deeper snowdrift and our coarse-woven blankets soaked through to our skins, freezing the clothes to our backs and drowning any fire we dared light to hang them over. No matter how quietly and carefully we moved, senses of direction well-honed from years of excavation in the desert, there would be patrols crossing and recrossing our trail, before and behind us, flanking us inwards from the sides. They would not expect a pair of Ishvalan refugees this far north, but I had no doubts of what they would do if they found us.

My worst memory of that trip was of waiting in the outskirts of an abandoned mining town, hiding beneath our blankets in a pile of refuse, praying that we'd seen the flash of light off of the scope before they had seen us. I hated waiting, hunching like cornered prey in someone else's filth, cowering like naughty children beneath our blankets for fear of monsters in the snow. My skin prickled at the cloaking wool, the cold air. I could take them. I locked my hands on the too-damp ground, preparing to rise and attack the soldiers before they could attack us, but Brother's hand flashed across my chest, the black ink still new and crisp against his brown skin. "Not here, Zosimos," he whispered, his voice a soft and fitful warm wind. "We're safe here. No one knows about this place but us. We'll go back for Mother and Father and we can lead them here, rest here, and pass Briggs in the tunnels beneath us. They'll never see us here."

It was nothing more than lies, all of it, my elder brother's desperate attempts to save me from certain death, but the surety in his voice was enough to make me pause, to still me long enough for the patrol to move beyond the next ridge in the snowline. He'd led me to the edge of Xerxes, he'd led me to the shadow of Briggs, and I trusted my brother to lead me home and then onto safe haven.

We headed down into the tunnel entrance before we turned back, optimistically stashing away books and a change of clothing and extra food in the basement of a nearby abandoned shack that hadn't caved in too greatly. It would be slower going with our parents, and they could carry less in comparison to us. "It'll be our safe haven, Brother," I told him with a renewed cheer, surveying our tiny hideaway our last night huddled together against the shadow of the mountain cliffs. "Our secret that no Amestrian will ever ferret out." Not even Solaris.


	13. Third Life: Changing Stations

A/N: Yes, I am from Kanda. I am Kandaese. My name? No. (See, Ax, I told you it never works...) I don't own 'em. Thanks to Nebula Coyote and Cap'nHoozits for the continuous reviews!

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A fifteen-year-old should not give a grown man a patronizing grin. I pushed the envelope into my goddaughter's hand more firmly than was strictly necessary. "Pack the letter. You don't have to show it to anyone, but if you have trouble at the border…"

"I'll be prepared," Katarie finished with an exasperated nod, crumpling the letter into her shoulder bag. "I _know_, Uncle Scar, but I want to do this on my own. You didn't have anyone to introduce you to an alchemy master and I'm already five years older than they were when they started learning, so I've got to prove that I'm willing to do the hard part on my own if I'm going to catch up with the Elrics and you." Actually, that wasn't true. My parents had introduced my master long before either of us had heard of the word. No one had introduced my brother to an alchemy master.

"You don't need to follow my lead on everything." This was not how I'd meant to inspire the girls, but I would do what I could to make it easier for them… if they would let me.

"Trust me, I won't." Her eyes sparkled with more than a touch of her mother's devilment. "Ishvala willing, I'll do even better. But out in Xing, it's going to have to be me doing it, you know?" Her arm took in the dusty track extending past the shading overhang of the station to beyond the eastern horizon.

"You don't need to prove yourself to me, Katarie. Or your parents." Miles and Sherry had gotten the chance to tell her the same thing and had, plenty of times. They wouldn't let their half-grown daughter leave the country to study under just any alchemists, either, but Miles was prouder of her drive than he was worried about her chosen profession.

Besides, this was Mei and Alphonse Elric. They had ushered more than a dozen curious souls into the arts of alchemy and Rentan-jitsu between them; they'd even taught this stubborn stray more than a few tricks over the years. If I wouldn't take Katarie Miles as an apprentice alchemist myself, she would turn to the closest I had to one.

"Please. Let's not make this embarrassing, Uncle." She looked away, waving me off as she stepped backwards toward the train. "Just gotta prove it to the military," my eldest goddaughter concluded, nodding at a figure behind me.

Her eyes were not focused on her immediate family, but upon the other well-wisher who was ostensibly here because "Mustang could barely tell if there was a break in the damned rails and the locomotive was hooked on the wrong end." The fact that said railway had been in operation all the way to the Xingese border for nearly four and a half years was never questioned. Nor was the fact that Mustang had less to do with the construction and mantainance of said train line than our own local operators. It gave the visitor an excuse to pace around the pillars and stare hard at the distant sunrise, blurred red by windblown sand from an early morning breeze instead of moderating last-minute arguments or attempts at advice.

"They already expect much from you," I allowed, following Katarie's gaze. "Just don't get so excited over a pocket watch that you forget why you're getting it."

She straightened away from her suitcase, crossing her arms over the strap of her bagful of books, immediate necessities, and what little treasures we wouldn't let her leave the country without. "It won't be because my uncle's the Civil Alchemist Hunter. It's not because Mom and Dad turned down promotions at Briggs to come out here."

"It's not because your little sister's desperate to follow you," I countered. If I had voiced worries about Katarie leaving by herself, they could hardly compare to the complaints of my younger goddaughter - she hated for Katarie to get an "unfair head start."

Katarie laughed at that. "Millie threatened to hide in my luggage. I told her she has to stay here at least long enough to keep you from stopping the train." I'd only have to break a few passenger cars from their hitches, less if she waved to us from the caboose… "It is because Millie's following me, at least sort of. It's because I need the tools to follow you and Dad and Mom and General Armstrong. You guys saved Amestris; what am I supposed to do that makes you proud of me? That makes _me_ proud to be me if I don't try to be as awesome as that?" She quickly reconsidered the thumbs she'd pointed at her chest, tucking them inwards and clutching up her baggage.

"No one can do that alone." My eyes dropped to the raised sandstone beneath our feet as I felt my lips twitch upwards in sympathy and pride. And the girl was afraid that I'd embarrass her with my effusiveness. "All you must do is whatever makes you happy and brings you peace with God."

"Though, really, the letter of introduction to people I've known practically since Millie was still in diapers is pretty lame," she continued as if she hadn't heard. The Elrics were infrequent visitors, though I wouldn't deny that they were memorable. "And Mom is too weird to really count as awesome all the time, and Dad doesn't ever hear that this conversation happened, right? Even if he does that look." Miles's elder daughter mimed peeping knowingly and dispassionately over a pair of sunglasses. "Especially if he does that look. I'm glad to know that you all love me and right back at you, but let's not get corny. Let's just know that I'm going to have your back and make sure you're happy and at peace with God, too, just like you do for me, Uncle. I know it's dangerous, but it's worth it."

I put a hand to her shoulder. "You remind me so much of Brother."

She shrugged, giving me a quick hug. "Of course. I'm his daughter, aren't I?" I wouldn't correct her. Though it went unspoken, there was something of a family resemblance.

"But do me a favor, Uncle Scar: I know I don't have to ask you to look out for Mom, Dad, and Millie, but you and the general take care of each other for me." I allowed her a guarded nod, waiting to see what had brought this on. At least superficially, Katarie Miles was more of a blustering teenager than a romantic young woman. I couldn't help but wonder - with just a hint of fear - what three to five years of apprenticeship under Princess Mei Elric of the Chan clan would do for our young would-be bear of Ishval's tenderheartedness. "When I come back, I'm going to need her to run a country that I'm proud to serve and protect, and I need you to stay on the alchemy board so that I get a good codename. No offense to Dr. Marcoh, but 'Crystal' and 'Silver' sound way too girly, 'Crimson' barely gets a pass for being a cool color, and as for 'Strongarm?' If I get a distance pun as my codename, I think I'd have to declare holy war."

"That's nothing to joke about, Katarie." "Hunter" was bad enough. Officially it was because I kept pushing the new level of official alchemists, recruiting those of us who could keep an outside eye on the military, but when in a darker humor, Marcoh and Mustang would swear that I'd only changed my tactics to rid the world of State Alchemists. "Thank God you never met Kimbley face to face, or you'd understand when one should declare holy war on the State."

She accepted the rebuke with relative good humor, though she shook her head at me. "I know he was dangerous, but I can't get over the codename. Crimson?" On paper, Kimbley's specialty had been explosions. In practice, it had been drawing every last drop of bloody terror from a body. The name was hardly as funny when the last time I had seen my elder brother, it had been through a haze of red…

I couldn't linger on that memory with my oldest niece waiting on her train to Xing. It was hard enough to let her go without considering that first train ride I'd made to Briggs. Best to change the subject and give her a slightly different example. "It's easy to underestimate an alchemist whose name doesn't match up with the appearance. When Fullmetal was serving in the military, he was barely your mother's height, if that."

"Mr. Ed?" She lifted her hand well above her head, marking a height even with mine. "Major Elric? Shorter than Mom? I'm taller than Mom_. Millie's _taller than Mom."

"And Alphonse Elric reached his full height early and lived within a suit of armor. You'll have to ask him for the raging details, but it surprised more than one who met them." Katarie wouldn't start until she was old enough not to be mistaken for a child, even if that had perhaps helped save Edward Elric's life. I'd fudge her test results if I had to.

"That's why he gives everybody such a hard time, huh? A lot to live up to…" she trailed off. Now she was the one who looked too serious. I wanted her to think long and hard about this on the train, but I also wanted to see my goddaughter's smile before she left. I am but a humble sinner.

"You do realize that the most powerful Civil Alchemist could be considered to have a 'girly' codename."

"Yeah, I know, but she made it awesome before it was official. I can do that too, if I have to, but you managed to get a good name for yourself and then live up to it." For a certain value of "good," I'd done it more than once. "I mean to do it, too, but I can't if we stand around here talking." Katarie offered me another hug, kissing my cheek in farewell. The introductory letter wasn't the only thing I'd grip too tightly this morning. "I'll be home before you know it, so save me a cool one, right? You're going to have to have something different to call me when both Dad and I are in uniform. I gotta go say 'bye to General Armstrong and then Mom and Dad again." The girl waved as if departing from the schoolhouse to run and do chores, hitching her bag higher and dragging her suitcase behind her.

"Be safe," I called after her. My hand was barely in the air before she'd turned her head away.

Her leave-taking from Armstrong was much briefer; involving a salute rather than hugs, though Katarie did grip the older woman's elbow as she whispered something in her ear that made the general smirk momentarily. I didn't listen in.

All five of us had gathered at the track's edge as Katarie climbed aboard. I stepped back and gave Miles and Sherry their space as Millie followed beside the rails, running after the sluggishly accelerating engine with a gaggle of other children like a flock of oversized land-bound cactus wrens. General Armstrong had remained at the rear of the press, preferring to keep her breathing space free with uniform, sheathed sword, and the occasional elbow or boot for those who had allowed a decade of resettlement to overcome wariness of a blonde Amestrian in general's blues. Even for Armstrong, this was easier done further away from the train; our people had long memories, but we were not timid.

Katarie was living up to the latter, at least, I concluded with an inner smile. I felt a hand at my shoulder as I lowered them both in what I'd hoped to have been an undetectable sigh. "Ishvalan." The general inclined her head away from the crowd.

"Amestrian," I acknowledged her equally.

Ice-blue eyes narrowed incrementally. Her grip tightened on my shoulder. "I need some answers from you. Don't keep me waiting."

I took the hand in mine, though she was quick to break contact and lead me away without the usual pull of touch. Olivia Armstrong seemed almost ashamed to take my hand in public, though memory suggested that she'd always been quick to grip me at the shoulder, arm, or wrist, quicker than she would seize most prisoners. The set of her shoulders betrayed just a hint of stiffness, though her step was as assured a swagger as ever. "I don't understand you, Zosimos."

"What isn't to be understood?"

"You are aware I have several younger siblings." Entirely too aware, at least as far as Alex was concerned. "Armee and Strongko are long married; my secretary makes sure something gets sent for nieces and nephews' birthdays. I see them perhaps once or twice a year, depending on how often I get roped into family gatherings. I don't know the kids that well and never really planned to, unless they decided to try for Briggs. That seems unlikely at this juncture." She rounded as if to pace to the other side of the station, not looking up until I placed myself in her path. I assumed she needed privacy, not me chasing her through the open-air station. "You, on the other hand, take a pair of girls utterly unrelated to you, train them under your wing every day when you're not looking after other people's children, and take nearly as much pride in them as their father. And when they still end up shaped so utterly unlike how you planned, you still send them off with a hug and a note of introduction." The general offered me a withering glance.

"Of course." Was everyone going to mock me for a perfectly normal measure of polite social behavior, or just those raised by bears?

Armstrong licked her lips. Here or at Briggs, the air could quickly rob a mouth of moisture, so she knew perfectly well how to apply balm to them. They had always appeared… healthy. She appeared more at a loss for words than for water. "Why? And how the hell do you do it so calmly?"

"It isn't easy." I might have her fooled, but I did not feel calm. "I worry about her. You know I've tried to argue both Katarie and Millie out of this; I still have two years to try to convince our youngest goddaughter, but I do have to face the fact that they're hardly mine alone." She snorted at that, though if I did not know that Olivia Armstrong never shrunk from anything and was more likely to fluster young mothers and their children with her language than be put off balance by words herself, I might imagine that the color in her cheeks was due more to my choice of the word "our" than the heat of the early morning. "Katarie's got her mother's steady hands, her father's sense of commitment -"

"Your damn-fool stubbornness," Armstrong cut in.

"Worse, my brother's damn-fool stubbornness. You never met Jabir, but he wanted to become a State Alchemist like Katarie does." I was unsure exactly how much research she'd done into my first life, but this assertion neither visibly surprised her nor assured her.

"He didn't," she observed mildly, arms still crossed before her.

Brother hadn't achieved that dream, fueled by equal parts lust for knowledge and love for Solaris. He'd done better. "Alchemy was - and still is, in some circles, - frowned upon by our religion, to put it mildly, even before the war. Brother not only studied it, he taught me." I laughed despite myself. "He taught a dogmatically-raised, narrow-minded, physically active, stubborn hell-beast of a teenager with a hair-trigger temper enough of a forbidden art that he had no interest in learning to send State Alchemists shivering at the name of 'Scar' even now."

The general put a hand to my shoulder. Her grip was softer this time, a rain-season bloom testing the air. "This is what I don't understand. You know exactly what the pain of losing someone you love feels like, yet you continue to seek them out."

"I've no choice, when they come to me." I could shrug that hand off, I could clasp it in friendship, or I could pull her close, but any way I responded, it would leave an impact. We were not alone; no one could claim it a prank on an overly bombastic major.

Sherry chivvied her youngest offspring back to where Miles waited near the boarding ramps, gangly daughter and petite, bespectacled mother locked in playful combat as Sherry dragged the thirteen-year-old away from the departed train with an arm hooked around the back of Millie's neck. Millie made a show of digging in her heels, but there was more forward motion than reverse to her flailing feet. Shifting from stillness to speed as quickly as a spooked sunning lizard, Miles met them partway, enveloping them both in his arms, his head dropping to place kisses and soft words to his wife and daughter's faces.

My younger brother had better put his betting money to good use.

"You're either very, very brave, or very, very stupid, Zosimos." Olivia leaned in, kissing my cheek much as Katarie had. "I like that in a man."

"What are we to do with you?" I rested my fingers against her flushed cheek, reveling in its softness.

"Personally, I intend to become Fuhrer." Armstrong kept her voice full of cocky, sarcastic cheer, her finger sliding down the uneven surface of my forehead and nose.

I shook my head. "I meant concerning the girls. You've known them since they were first born; it's natural to get attached."

"Just because it's natural doesn't make it smart to do." Like taking her in my arms in a crowded train station… But then, there were plenty of other lovers reuniting here.

"A man can't depend upon the kindness of strangers all his life," I told her. "And a woman can't be kind to strangers without at least a few of them wanting to get to know her better."

"I have my allies," Armstrong responded shortly, stepping back with a centering breath. "That's all I need."

Her eyes had strayed to the Miles family as well. "Mm-hmm," I grunted. "You never once wished that it might have been you." Had I ever wished Solaris would ever look at me the way she looked at Brother? A thousand times yes, even after I gained an inkling of what she truly was. But for all this waiting, I could trust Olivia Armstrong when she turned softened eyes upon me, arms crossed as if to prevent herself from reaching out once more.

"Miles? _Please_," she laughed openly and without regret. "He's calm, collected, - a bit of a conniving bastard, when the mood takes him - and cares deeply for those he's sworn himself to, but the man takes too long to think. It makes him an excellent second-in-command, one of the best friends I could ever ask for, but that's not what I'm looking for in a lover. Perhaps it's just the Armstrong in me, but I want a man who knows what the hell he's doing without having to search his soul for it. If I ever take a husband, it'll be someone whose soul is great enough to just know and do what's right no matter what else happens."

"Even when the man's wrong?" It was better to just watch the sun inch its way above the overhang like a deceptively slow train. Not think.

"I never said it was likely that I'd ever get married," Armstrong said, turning her head up to meet my gaze with a tight-lipped smile. "Katarie's goals converge nicely with mine - both of us want me to become Fuhrer. Both of us want her strong enough to cover my back. If that's love, I can handle that."

"And when she wants to leave the country when you'd rather train her at Briggs? You let her leave. You made sure she was protected until she's strong enough to do it herself. That's love."

"I am used to my people working half a country - or more," she swallowed, "- away from me when necessary. The point, the very definition of being Fuhrer is to lead the country and go wherever is necessary, placing the right men and women wherever is necessary, not to stay sitting in an easily-sniped chair in the middle of Central and waiting for the problems to come to you." Olivia Armstrong allowed a little mischief to rise back into the glaciers of her eyes. "That is what a Vice-President is for." She put a hand to my arm. "Tell me, Zosimos, are you still capable of traveling light, or have ten years of domestication removed all traces of Scar? I think I may need backup for the next family gathering, and he'd better be prepared to retreat quickly."

I lifted her to my shoulder. She bent sideways and clutched around my neck, letting out something between a whoop of joy and a roar of protest. "Well, I've got a little more I want to bring with me now, but most of the weight is in that sword. It saves us on notes of introduction."

"You still upset that you didn't get on the train?" Miles questioned his daughter.

Millie adamantly shook her head in the corner of my vision that was not curtained in laughing gold and soft, finally forgiving blue. "Katarie's going to be so sorry she missed this." God had granted us a beautiful new morning.


	14. Of Other Lives

AN: Thank you to my loyal reviewers, Nebula Coyote and Cap'nHoozits! Rlly. ;) I own none of them. Just one last look at the others before the final chapter. Also, a shoutout to RandomCheeses' "Weakness," especially chapter 11. (No known relation to Rule 34 of teh internets. Except that that one probably applies.)

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**1906**

"Should we turn around, sir?" There was anguish in her aide's voice. He tried to mask it, but to her it's as obvious as those round red-tinted sunglasses, the frames dipped in a rubberized insulator against frostbite. He was young, straight out of officer's school, and ambitious to be starting out at Briggs, of all places. He kept his head down and quietly wormed his way up through the ranks. Miles was exactly the sort of fresh snot the brigadier-general hated, except for one thing: he challenged her on the war. Not for his own sake, though his red eyes brought him plenty of trouble from the rest of the new meat, but for those who didn't have the luxury of being three-quarters Amestrian. He was hers; he proved that when he backed down before the old guard, but his heart's as Ishvalan as his eyes, skin, and hair, Amestrian blood be damned. He'll gladly follow her, but it's a good thing they're stationed up north, as far from the war as possible, because he probably wouldn't follow the Fuhrer if Bradley tried to lead him from the fires of hell. And for that, Olivia Armstrong had to admit she loves the boy, at least somewhat. He's _her_ mixed-blood, rebellious newbie snot.

"For what, a couple of drunken miners?" She had seen the red eyes in dark faces before the blanket came up as clearly as Miles had: one pair wide and fearful, the other quickly narrowing in rage.

"I doubt they were drunk, sir." Miles had survived the traditional hazing night at the bar sans hangover, claiming that it was against his religion to imbibe. By the time the other boys had managed to push him down and tried to force the real alcohol down his throat, they were too drunk to give him more than a good quaff. There was probably more on his uniform than in his stomach by the end of the night. Since he hadn't participated in group activities, Armstrong sent Miles to the medical bay the next morning to help Dr. Wendle clean up. He came back smelling less like alcohol and more like strong coffee and Sherry Wendle's favorite brand of cigarettes, and Armstrong had never seen him smoke. The brandy stains on his shirt had been scrubbed at, too. His Ishvala must love this one.

(Her baby brother was getting stationed in Ishval, as soon as the orders went through.)

"So we have even less reason to stop. Let's go, Captain." She didn't know how they had gotten up here. She didn't particularly care. She'd give them one chance to see if they could survive the mountains before they had to face the Cliff, as long as they didn't rile up her forces or try to steal anything.

Miles let out a long breath. "Thank you, ma'am."

**1914**

Lust noted him nearly as soon as Gluttony did. Her nose was not nearly as strong, but the human was familiar. His right arm was even more familiar. Both had changed in the intervening twelve years, growing stronger, harder, more scarred.

She cared not a whit. All of them were insects to her; worms in the dirt to be chopped to pieces. But that was not supposed to be the brother that survived. That was the stupid one, the headstrong one, the short-fused firecracker who was only useful as a potential hostage for her primed sacrifice. What idiot alchemist had made the mistake of killing off the elder brother and leaving the younger one alive? If he wasn't a potential sacrifice himself, Lust was ready to kill the man personally. They had so few choices and time was running so quickly by…

It had seemed slower in Ishval, sitting with Jabir, listening to his theories and dropping little hints whenever she was feeling particularly pleased with him. Nothing that could lead him to Father, of course, not yet, but she asked the questions that could shape his research, that could lead him to Truth once the timing was right. The human had lapped it up like an attention-starved kitten, shy and awkward and yet so honest in his affections, so eager to please her and continue his research. Even when his family disproved, even when that firebrand of a powerless god that he called Little Brother accused him of sin, of turning his back on family and religion both, Jabir knew exactly what to say to defuse that bomb, calmed his brother, and then returned to her and his alchemy.

She caught herself slipping sometimes, with Havoc, talking for hours about nothing in particular and coming no closer to her goal, and she lied and told herself that it was the same as with Jabir: the greater time and trust the man gave her, the more she could get out of him later. Envy had just cut her mission in Ishval too short to reap the benefits.

So why was Zosimos alive when Jabir was not?

"Can I eat him?" Gluttony's high-pitched whine cut her back to the rooftops.

"Yes," she said, leaving her head resting against her palm in wistful reminiscence. "You may eat him."

**1918**

"Colonel Hawkeye," the major-general halted her from following Mustang to the car. Riza hoped this wasn't another recruitment effort. She was flattered that Armstrong thought so highly of her, but she belonged at Roy Mustang's back. Who else would have the patience to keep the man safe, sane, and on task? They were so close now… "Can you explain why your commanding officer flash-fried a pair of anemic wooly caterpillars to his upper lip?"

"There's nothing in the dress code against mustaches, General Armstrong, ma'am." Roy's mustache might be against every known law of good taste, but he insisted that it would look amazing once it had filled in.

Riza was still waiting. She could be patient.

Armstrong was not helping. "There are men who can grow a mustache. Buccaneer. My father. Sig Curtis. For everything else that was wrong with him, Bradley's wasn't bad. There are men who cannot grow decent facial hair. Yoki. Any Ishvalan under forty. Brigadier-General Roy Mustang. I don't know what the man thinks he's doing, but I'm tempted to take my sword to his drowned, bisected lip rat every time I see the horrid thing."

"We'll keep that in mind, ma'am." Score another for her, Winry Elric, Madame Christmas, Havoc, and Breda's camp. Edward only egged the brigadier on because he enjoyed mocking him for it, her grandfather was quietly amused by the whole send-up, Alex Armstrong approved of any mustache, no matter how ridiculous, and Fuery and Falman were too loyal to say anything about the Face Ferret - at least in public. As was Hawkeye, of course. At least until Becky Catalina brought up how cute Roy was, trying to look all grown up…

Then Riza Hawkeye required alcohol.

"Speaking of… unusual hair styles, I noticed that a high percentage of your male commanding officers choose to grow their hair past standard length." Edward Elric would have fit right in with Briggs high command, if he'd chosen to stay on.

Armstrong pushed the blonde curtain of her own long bangs behind her ear. It was rumored that not only had she gotten an exception in the dress code, Rule 34 (a)-(ii) was taken verbatim from the Northern Cliff's argument with the overly officious Central rules-lawyer who'd dared confront her. Having read it, Riza could imagine why the rumor had started, but it had likely been cleaned up significantly from the original quote. "They keep it tied back while on duty."

Hawkeye, who kept her own hair pinned up since the relaxation of the dress code, nodded in acknowledgement. "I also noticed that Scar seems to have grown his out since leaving the premises of the Armstrong mansion."

General Armstrong just smiled. "It's a hell of a lot easier than having to kick a man's knees out from under him."

Within the week, Colonel Hawkeye had gotten a new haircut. Within a month, she'd finally won the Battle of the Face Ferret. There were advantages to breaking her chain every now and then.


	15. Epilogue: God's Will

A/N: Thank you all for sticking with me until the end! I generally put the major-general at about 35 as of the Promised Day, but I don't own them. As words of warning: This chapter skips around a bit timeline-wise and is definitely rated T, at least. I'd 'splain it, but that would include spoilers. Let's just say there's Part 1, then Part 3, then Part 4 interweaves with Part 2, as well as being the source for the fragmented quote dividing the rest. Hello, shameless Oliviar and salute to causmicfire's "Doom and the Wedding," 'cause there's nothin' wrong with good Olivieer, either.

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_My wife._

Olivia had not been exaggerating about her sisters and mother. Much. And Alex and General Phillip Armstrong (retired from active duty in the military; not the light of his life, running his family as tightly as any military historically containing at least three boisterous, iron-willed Armstrongs could possibly be,) were more than happy to provide whatever extreme outpouring of emotion that the girls weren't up to. Once I'd convinced them of our intentions (her parents and brother had trouble believing that the Major-General was seriously considering a marriage proposal, much less had all but initiated it,) all that was left to do was to stand back and ride the Armstrong tide. Location, guest list, decorations... details were covered before Olivia and I had so much as considered them. Her mother, father, and sisters had been plotting this out for a very long time, whether or not they ever thought it possible.

They weren't completely unreasonable. Armee and Strongko, the main conspirators in their "big" sister's wedding plans, had been open to the idea of an "exotic" Ishvalan priest; one of the boys I'd trained myself. Alex left off from a "traditional test of worthiness" for his oldest sister's honor when Olivia pointed out that if I didn't kill him in an alchemy battle, she could and would without any skill in the field whatsoever. Catherine was quick to take our side when I broached the subject of including Miles in the groom's party; someone had to keep Olivia sane and the youngest sister was quite amenable to that someone being one of her eldest sister's famed bears, even if it was one of the married ones. Apparently the general had dragged her Captain Buccaneer along on a previous family engagement and Catherine had taken quite a shine to him.

Still, there was plenty of reason to require Miles's service besides distracting Olivia's youngest sister. The Armstrong family "consulted" the bride-to-be mostly by informing her of what they had already decided upon, and the active General Armstrong had a worse fight on her hands than anything Drachma had thrown at her if she wanted something other than what they'd already decided. Miles and I were polled only as a last resort, much in the same fashion that Olivia had been asked for her opinion. Tradition dictated that I was not to see my bride's wedding dress before the day, but reports of said garment differed greatly between Olivia Armstrong and her siblings. From listening in on her mother and the girls, I heard odes to dreamy satins, delicate lace, romantically billowing layers, and finely-crafted beadwork. My betrothed, if pressed, would pronounce it "impractical," "uncomfortable," and "damned froofy." Major Miles, ever the loyal soldier, tended to agree with her, though he allowed Armstrong to be the one to go into detail.

Even my red-eyed brother was pressed to maintain his equilibrium when his commanding officer handed him a spare uniform the night before our wedding. "I don't care if you have to wear it under your own outfit; have that ready for me tomorrow," she directed. "They'll search me and the girls for contraband, but if I have to sacrifice my sword to make them think they've won, I will be wearing my military uniform with or without my family's approval, not that…" she trailed off in disgust. "Frilly, sparkly mess that my youngest nieces wouldn't have chosen for themselves. I'm counting on you, Major."

"Sir," he replied neutrally, accepting the bundle.

I lingered in the hall, not wishing to accidentally bring bad luck by running into Olivia Mira Armstrong while she was empathetically being Olivia Mira Armstrong. "Miles," I called softly, keeping my eyes away from the inside of the door. "Tell her that I'm deconstructing whatever she's wearing once the bedroom door closes."

I walked onwards, but I could have sworn I heard a grin in Miles's tone. "Sir, even if you render it unfit for public use, keep the 'froofy' dress for tomorrow night, at least. Trust me, it'll be worth it."

_Someone shot._

These last few months have granted me a peace that I never believed myself worthy of, or even capable of, here on earth. How does one describe the contentment of waking early on a lazy morning in Ishval, wearing nothing but a wedding band, clinging to one's wife to preserve body heat before the sun rises as she wears even less, then languidly licking the sweat from one another's bodies to insure that there is enough moisture between us for one more round before we rise to our other duties? My prayers were filled with joyful thanksgiving, for even in Briggs, when I nuzzled her beneath the thick blankets, reluctant to break the spell, she assured that I am not without reasons to leave our bed, just as I am never without reasons to be thankful for returning to it.

She campaigns; Grumman's health is declining and he begins to think more seriously of his heirs. It is soldier's work, physical work - both of us know our actions leave a bigger impression than spoken words and those words left unspoken often count for more. Mustang has the prettier speeches, the prettier spouse, at least compared to Olivia's, and the flashier alchemy, but Olivia Armstrong-Hayyan is an old hand at this. She trades eloquence for the elegance of simplicity, vague promises for proven practicalities, and the flash for something that works one-handed, without gloves. It is not equivalent exchange. She thrives on the challenge, even when it seems Mustang must pull ahead, his unflagging ambition and fire-tested idealism unstoppable. She refuses to sink to mud-slinging; she still needs him to sit in that easily-sniped chair with Amestris's best sniper at his side so that we might continue to move around the country as if we were still in my second life with the balm of Ishval renewed to lighten our steps.

I taught the ways and words of Ishvala, and encouraged young alchemists to consider a path outside the military, and trusted Mustang to run the same campaign he'd always done.

It was not fair, perhaps, but we are all long past fairness. In its place, we live with God's bounty: unsought, never dared hoped for, barely even considered, and yet so easily destroyed with a word or flex of a vicious finger.

_In the stomach._

The words do not even form a complete sentence before I am after my quarry, trusting Olivia's care to the Wellspring Alchemist. Katarie has long been better at the healing arts of Xingese alkhestry than I am, and I can hear my wife curse the girl for holding her back; it's only a couple of lousy thirty-eights, after all. Barely knocked her off balance.

The walls around the crowd begin to close with ice without help from my left hand; Katarie and Millie both have tattooed themselves down to the pads of their feet with more than totemic bears of Briggs. Tales of Father and Hohenheim, Jabir's ancient sages of East and West, captured their imaginations as well as they had my elder brother's. I can only hope that the stamp of the youngest active State Alchemist's foot is as effective as those sages. (Wellspring's too young, trying to do too much. My niece insists that with such master alchemists and warriors as formed her wellspring, she must soar to even greater heights. She's still just one barely eighteen-year-old soldier, not a philosopher's stone.) Major Katarie Miles's hands are busy with other tasks; this one must be mine. If she ignores the major-general's orders to let her go, the girl doesn't disobey me when I tell her to stand down and let me turn this trap on its maker.

Usually, I am not one to curtail my prey's movements, especially when so many innocents could get caught in the crossfire. I will fall upon evil like God's justice; no walls will stop me, no amount of running will discourage me, no hiding place offers safe haven from the will of Ishvala, and I am the messenger of His will. But if I am God's avenging angel, I also have been claimed by a woman under Him. This cretin has shot her in the middle of a rally in Dublith, and the only mercy it would receive was that I would kill it quickly, at least once I'd extracted everything I wanted to know from it. I could just as easily hang onto it until the Curtises returned home.

Dublith, unlike Ishval, is not a dry heat. While the temperature is not uncomfortable, I could feel my undershirt cling to me from lingering sweat, adding further stiffness to my spine. My hands already feel slick before I have applied the left to a wall, cutting off the way back to the general and her followers with ragged tears of wood, earth, and stone, for I cannot pull that much water from beneath our feet and from the air, even in Dublith. The humidity and temperature eases as I come closer to the alchemized wall of ice, but my right hand thirsts for liquid in ways that even the suddenly desiccated lump that used to be my throat cannot.

The walking damned has already dropped the gun, as if it could deny its guilt by leaving behind its weapon. I do not blame the rifle. I never took much liking to them, but when Miles trained his daughters in their care and use, it was with my silent approval. Guns were dangerous, but in the end, they were simply a tool. The only weapons that matter are those that could not be so easily discarded, though I would see that trigger finger removed in a moment, if not both arms. The murderer trembles at my approach, fumbling for a knife when I do not slow. "Scar," the too-young mouth breathes in disbelief, in foolish defiance.

And for a moment, I realize, I have slipped back between lives. For Hunter, I'm feeling distinctly uncivil. "Uncle Scar," a much different creature than that which my frightened prey calls me now, is hardly setting the best example for his nieces. Though I pray to the same God and call down my wrath in His name, it is not the Ishvalan in general that flashes one hand to the knife, the other to the assassin's throat, and squeezes as he lifts. I do this for my general. As those pale, pale blue eyes widen in struggle for breath, I do this for Jabir.

"Bucky," Olivia was adamant we'd call him, though she agreed that his formal first name might be after my fallen Brother. I insisted that I'd be just as happy with a little girl; I had experience in helping to raise little girls. She was equally sure that we'd have a boy - I'd had nothing but brothers, and after all her sisters, the Armstrong clan was past due for a son that didn't glitter.

_Pregnant_, my mind added to the jumbled, half-formed sentence, too late.

She had left our bed before I had awakened, and sat combing her hair before the mirror, the chain with her silver engagement and wedding rings and alloyed steel dog tags hanging just above the tattooed crown between her breasts. There was nothing unusual to this scene - Olivia liked to get an early start at Briggs - save that she was only half-dressed and muttering to her reflection as she ran the brush through her hair, almost taking pleasure in the white streaks within the gold that were not my doing. Slitting my eyes half-open, I burrowed a little deeper and resolved to take my time before I faced the chill. It wasn't as if I didn't appreciate anything that came from being in the icy climate of my wife's homeland, such as the sight of that tattoo...

"It's menopause," she told her reflection firmly. "Wendle-Miles has let her brain fry out in the desert too long, and even she knows Younkin's an idiot. I'm forty-seven. It's time. I should have just had it removed years ago; Izumi Curtis does well with less and that was from a rebound, not proper surgery." Despite my instinct to counterfeit sleep until sunrise, I felt my eyebrows creep upwards and I raised my chin a little further above the blankets. Her other arm shifted to her lap as she tapped the brush against the mirror. "I'm too old to have an attack of religion or raise a kid. What do I tell him, 'yes, you're right, this is a miracle?'" The brush spun as cleanly through her fingers as her sword as she pointed it back toward the bed. "It's a miracle that we're both alive, that Amestris is still standing, that Katarie pulled off a big enough stunt that not even he could deny her a pocket watch. This… is… impossible."

I could still be silent when I rose, though I waited until she'd turned her attention back to the pale stubborn curl rising from her forehead before I attempted to approach her in the dim lamplight. "You could start with 'I'm pregnant,'" I suggested, wrapping my arms below hers and leaning across to kiss along the line of the chain.

"Not if I hear anything that even vaguely resembles 'I told you so' or 'as God wills it' for my trouble." She set the brush down within easy reach, clutching my shoulder to hers.

"I love you, Olivia." Slowly, blindly, I traced a line down from the curve of her breast to her navel. "So this is our military-brat preacher's kid," I murmured against her pulse, pausing to kiss her again. "Probably red-eyed. Dark skinned." I slipped around her to kneel with my head resting at the base of the cliff.

"Likely already has the Armstrong curl." She entwined her fingers with mine where they rested against her womb, her other hand brushing the tangles from my unbound ponytail. "Shit," she sighed, and her fingers tightened on me. "I don't know how we're going to do this. I still don't believe it's real."

I didn't, either, not entirely. I'd long resigned myself to having no children but my godchildren, no one left alive that I could truly call blood-kin. Olivia and Miles were enough, and Sherry and the Armstrongs were all a man could hope for from his in-laws. Too much, even. And now…

And now that miracle has been taken from us, spilled on the street below like his killer's blood. I have not taken this filthy life, not yet. Let it suffer as my wife suffers; no one need rip its womb from its body before the unchecked blood drains and smothers mother as well as child. The sorry excuse of a human being can bleed out from that stump, for all I care, even if Wellspring and the emergency medical team she has called turn from their more important patient to at least halt the leak of its bodily fluid. I kneel next to Olivia, still silent. Let the military question this worthless demon; as long as it came alone, I can hunt down its compatriots later. "Only damage was the uterus," she reports, daring Katarie Miles to contradict her. "He took after his namesakes." I take the hand she offers me, pale and shivering despite the heat of the day as we rise to unsteady legs. We'll stand back up. It's all we can do.

_God works in mysterious ways_. I don't say it now as I didn't say it back then.

"I know, but I can't run from the truth. We'll find a way, because you and I are strong enough to survive. Our baby is strong enough to survive." I kissed her belly impulsively. We weren't going to leave the bedroom early that day.

"If God so wills it." She tried to keep her tone sarcastic, but there was too much joy, too much trembling, delicate hope for cynicism.

"Just remember that you said it, not me."

"Love you, Zosimos. Think I could even learn to love this little rugrat of yours." Olivia had not been sparkling; she was glowing, radiant.

"Ours," I corrected, rising with her in my arms. Sometimes the words one used were important.

"Ours," she sighed in agreement. "Ours."

I cycle through my lives. Brother does not, though he occasionally sends me reminders of what I thought I had left behind me.

_God's will be done._

I am an instrument of His will. Let it be done.


End file.
